Synthesis of near surface permafrost borehole information from Bethel Geotechnical Reports (1967-2004).

Bethel, Alaska is located in a zone of discontinuous permafrost and was thought to lack ice wedges. Historical geotechnical drilling reports from 1967 to 2005 were analyzed for any previously reported massive ground ice. Relevant borehole data was manually extracted from 18 historical geotechnical reports. Digital scans of these reports were processed using Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020, specifically utilizing the Scan and OCR (optical character recognition) tool to make the text searchable. Pertinent data including depth to permafrost, permafrost presence, presence of visible ice, presence of massive ice, and borehole depths, were manually extracted and compiled into Excel spreadsheets. This dataset provides historical context regarding permafrost conditions and variability in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.