The article describes the regional characteristics of the distribution of morphometric parameters of ice ridges in five local areas in the Kara and Laptev Seas. The article gives the main parameters of the morphometry of ice ridges of different water areas. The features of the consolidated layer distribution are shown depending on the study region and the ridge-building conditions. Averaged profiles of the cross-section of the ice ridge are shown, the nature of the change in the thickness of the consolidated layer concerning the sail and keel of the ice ridge is shown. Averaged vertical distributions of porosity are obtained. The article reveals regional differences and general patterns of distributions of the main morphometric characteristics of ice ridges.

INTRODUCTION

Information about the morphometric characteristics of ice ridges and the patterns of their distribution are necessary to assess the possible ice load in the design of offshore structures (Alekseev et al., 2001). Fig. 1 presents a diagram of an ice ridge. In different regions, the values of the morphometric characteristics of the ice ridges are different, which is mainly due to differences in meteorological and ice conditions.

Large-scale studies of AARI and Rosneft in 2013-2017 in the seas of the Russian Arctic have provided a large amount of information about the morphometry of large ice features. This article is a follow-up to "Morphometry and Internal Structure of Ice Ridges in the Kara and Laptev Seas" (Guzenko et al, 2019) with an emphasis on regional features of the distribution of morphometric characteristics. We carried out a comparative analysis of the main parameters of the internal structure of 104 first-year ice ridges studied in 2014-2017 in five local areas: southwest and northeast of the Kara Sea, southwest, northeast and Khatanga Bay of the Laptev Sea (Fig. 2). For the first four areas, the research data from 2014 and 2015 were used, for the Khatanga Bay - research data from 2017. Earlier, AARI conducted already research of first-year ice ridges in the Baydaratskaya Bay of the Kara Sea in 2007 and 2010. The results of these studies are presented in (Mironov and Porubaev, 2011).

Keywords:
ice ridge, thickness, borehole, average porosity, characteristic, upstream oil & gas, internal structure, keel, morphometric parameter, porosity
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2020. International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers
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