A deep water (100 to 1500 m), continental slope-focused field program was carried out over four years, covering the eastern, central and finally, the western Beaufort Sea regions during survey expeditions in 2011, the western Beaufort in 2012, and 2014. This was supported through the BREA program (Beaufort Regional Environmental Assessment) with funds from AANDC (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development). Research activities were conducted in collaboration with ArcticNet, the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), Imperial Oil, and British Petroleum and Chevron Canada. The primary survey platform was CCGS Amundsen. Supplementary datasets from these collaborators contributed to survey concepts and specific targets but are not part of the BREA dataset. An amalgamation of all the continental slope-related data (from and including 2009) are included in the dataset. Data generated through these activities included multibeam (ca. 9500 square km at 50 m resolution) and sub-bottom profiler sonars (nearly 41 000 km) and seabed sediment cores to investigate deep water geohazards through geotechnical, stratigraphic, age-dating, and interpretations of geo-features and processes related to sediment instability. These data continue to be a primary dataset for GSC (Geological Survey of Canada) scientists to enable their present focus on assessment of seabed instability.

A data collection program was carried out between October 2015 and September 2017 to monitor the thinning and overall deterioration of "Petermann Ice Island (PII)-A-1-f". This large, tabular iceberg was a fragment of the 2012 Petermann Glacier calving event. Four field teams visited the ice island, and a stationary ice penetrating radar (sIPR) was installed on PII-A-1-f in October 2015 while the large, tabular iceberg was grounded near Qikiqtarjuaq, NU. The instrument was designed by Blue Systems Integration, Ltd. and was installed during the annual ArcticNet research cruise on board the CCGS Amundsen. It collected the first field dataset of ice island thinning, and along with surface ablation observations, the data were used to calibrate a forced-convection basal ablation model. Mobile IPR data were repeatedly collected over 2.4 km to assess the spatial variation in thinning and assess how well the sIPR measurements represented the conditions elsewhere on the ice island. Auxiliary data included photos, ablation stake measurements, sonic ranger recordings, air temperature measurements, GPS locations, and RADARSAT-2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. The latter were collected to monitor the surface areal extent of the ice island. The dataset contains: IPR measurements (.h5), GPS data collected along the mIPR transect (.csv), image files of ablation stakes (.jpg), air temperature data, sonic ranger measurements, and GPS positions of the weather station (.csv), georeferenced Fine-Quad (8 m nominal resolution) RADARSAT-2 SAR images (.tif) and polygon shapefiles delineating the areal extent (.shp).

Triplicate aerial-photo and LiDAR surveys of two iceberg sails were conducted to evaluate the capability of each technique to detect iceberg or ice island deterioration. This evaluation lays out how the spatial pattern and rate of iceberg deterioration could be measured with repeat surveys. 3D representations of the iceberg sails were generated from the aerial-photo surveys with the structure-from-motion (SfM) processing method as well as directly from the LiDAR data. The SfM data was scaled using GPS markers deployed on the icebergs prior to surveying and these were also used to correct the LiDAR data for iceberg drift. Scripts which were written for drift correction are included with the data. Alternative drift correction workflows can be developed and tested with the uncorrected data. The GPS data, some of which extends after the surveying was complete, can be utilized for drift analyses and drift model improvement. The dataset contains: image files from aerial-photo surveys (.nef and .tif), LiDAR point clouds (.txt files with lat/lon/elevation/timestamp) pre-and post-drift correction, INS (inertial navigation system) data (.txt files), GPS tracks (.csv files with lat/lon/elevation/timestamp), GPS error and PPP (Precise Point Positioning) output (.csv files), and point cloud scaling information. This data was collected during a collaboration between Statoil ASA and ArcticNet which ran during Leg 1 of the 2015 research cruise on board the CCGS Amundsen.