For all the years we've had people, snowmobiles and various cars and trucks go through the ice I've often wondered if there wasn't a "good" way to measure the thickness in hopes of preventing all but the most foolhardy from taking a cold bath. I did some looking a while ago and tried to find a cheap and easy way to allow a person to make that measurement. I looked at doing it with sound (ultrasonics) and that doesn't seem viable. The problem is one of many layers of ice, snow and air all of which are in some unknown combination contributing to many reflections with varying timings through each layer (time correlating to thickness and density). I haven't given up on the idea but put it on the back burner as a result. I know airborne ground penetrating radar has been used but that seemed neither cheap nor easy. Electromagnetic induction coils have been used but that method depended on the salinity / conductivity of the water underneath. That's not going to work on a lake. There's a simpler variant of the radar method,
detailed here, that seems to work. I don't know if 15 years advancement in electronics and signal processing would allow it to be "cheaply" though. The simplest answer would seem to be a small cordless drill attached to the end of a walking stick. You could get fancy and automate / instrument it to give a nice digital reading but I'd think color banding the bit would be sufficient. It doesn't help the sledders or truckers, unless they bother to stop and take a reading, but walkers might benefit. Of course they've already done a preliminary test just standing on the ice .....
Thoughts anyone ?