Alaska Highway geotechnical borehole database

From the 1970s to present, Yukon Highways has operated geotechnical drilling programs to characterize highway alignments and gravel pits. Every time a highway is realigned in Yukon, boreholes are drilled every 100 m down the centre line, averaging 6 m deep. A wealth of permafrost and surficial geology information exists in these borehole logs such as ground ice type and content and soil stratigraphy and texture.

In collaboration with Yukon Highways, YGS has been compiling this information into a geotechnical borehole database since 2005. The database is supported by an MS Access platform, modeled after a similar product developed by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) for storing Mackenzie Valley borehole data (Smith et al., 2005).

The Alaska Highway borehole database currently contains data for nearly 9000 boreholes drilled along the Alaska Highway between Beaver Creek and Watson Lake between 1978 and 2004. One-third (2970) of the boreholes in the database contain some record of permafrost conditions, and the majority of these occur between Beaver Creek and Whitehorse. GIS data derived from the database is a useful resource for a variety of land use planning and permafrost research efforts within the Alaska Highway corridor.

For more information contact: Panya Lipovsky, [email protected]