ABSTRACT
Data about permafrost below the bottom of the Arctic seas were available solely for the coastal shallows. With general concepts and extremely limited factual material, I. Ya. Baranov identified two zones of subsea permafrost layers. The first of these zones extends over the entire Arctic shelf of Asia to an isobath of 100 m. The second lies in the coastal zone of the Kara, Laptev, and Eastern Siberian seas to an isobath of 20 m. The possibility and necessity of a prolonged existence of the submarine cryolithic zone are due to the constant negative temperature of the near-bottom layers of seawater over a large part of the territory of the Arctic seas and the Arctic Ocean. Deep borehole drilling on the bottom of the Arctic seas is only beginning, and making geothermal measurements within them remains a matter for the future.
