Permafrost and Ground Ice Map of Northwestern Canada

Permafrost Map for Northwestern Canada (Mackenzie Region) is a digital version of the 1:1,000,000 geological map compiled by Heginbottom and Radburn in 1992. The dataset provides three geospatial layers detailing permafrost zones, rivers, and lakes for the Mackenzie Region. It classifies ground conditions into categories including continuous, discontinuous, intermediate, sporadic, and isolated permafrost, as well as glaciers.

Use Cases

• Modeling terrain stability for infrastructure planning using permafrost zone classifications.
• Analyzing historical permafrost distribution for climate change impact studies.
• Integrating river and lake vector data with permafrost zones for hydrological modeling.
• Creating baseline maps for comparing modern satellite-derived permafrost data.

Strengths

• Provides a standardized 1:1,000,000 scale map from the authoritative Geological Survey of Canada.
• Includes three distinct geospatial data layers (permafrost zones, rivers, lakes) for multi-theme analysis.
• Classifies permafrost into six specific categories (continuous, discontinuous, intermediate, sporadic, isolated, glaciers).

Limitations

• Original data is from 1992, limiting its relevance for current permafrost extent analysis.
• Conflicting metadata exists for the last updated date (1992 vs. 2026), creating uncertainty about versioning.
• Specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not documented across the platforms.

Provenance

Source

Geological Survey of Canada, Map 1691A, compiled by J.A. Heginbottom and L.K. Radburn.

Collection Method

Digitization of the original 1:1,000,000 scale paper map.

Time Range

1992

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:40:35.165778

Geography

Mackenzie Region of northwestern Canada.