Estimating Soil Electrical Parameters in the Canadian High Arctic from Impedance Measurements of the MIST Antenna Above the Surface

We report the bulk soil electrical conductivity and relative permittivity at a site in the Canadian High Arctic (79.37980 degrees N, 90.99885 degrees W). The soil parameters are determined using impedance measurements of a dipole antenna mounted horizontally 52 cm above the surface. The antenna is part of the Mapper of the IGM Spin Temperature (MIST) radio cosmology experiment. The measurements were conducted on July 17-28, 2022, every 111 minutes, and in the frequency range 25-125 MHz. To estimate the soil parameters, we compare the impedance measurements with models produced from numerical electromagnetic simulations of the antenna, considering single- and two-layer soil models. Our best-fit soil model corresponds to a two-layer model in which the electrical parameters are consistent with unfrozen soil at the top and frozen soil underneath. The best-fit parameters further agree with measurements done at other Arctic sites with more traditional techniques, such as capacitively-coupled resistivity, electrical resistivity tomography, and ground-penetrating radar.