How does grounding work in a structure on an ice sheet? Does the ground just go into the ice? (Note: I have only basic electrical knowledge).
1. Connect exposed or potentially inadvertently energized conductive parts to each other.
2. Connect potentially energized inadvertently conductive parts to something such that, if they are inadvertently energized (a live wire touches them by accident), the power will shut off.
3. Connect conductive things to the actual ground to allow lightning currents to dissipate somewhat safely, to reduce danger if you stand with your feet on the actual ground and your hand on something metal, etc.
#1 and #2 are unaffected by ice. #3 is, but if the ice is not conductive, then the degree to which harmful currents can conduct through it is reduced too.
As an aside:
#2 is complicated. In the US at least, it’s usually done by “solidly grounding” something. In a split phase system (houses) or a wye system (most commercial installations), this is the “neutral”, and it’s connected to “ground” at the supply. The neutral is (IMO) an evil current-carrying wire that happens to be at zero-ish volts to ground when everything is working right and can hide plenty of awful wiring errors. There are other systems (delta) where the neutral wire doesn’t exist as such but is still solidly grounded.
Somewhere near the opposite end of the spectrum are systems like Swedish Neutral’s “ground fault neutralizer”, where there are three current-carrying wires and the system is engineered so that any one of them can contact ground and conduct almost no current to ground as a result, but the monitoring equipment will nonetheless notice and can shut things down safely.
A household 120V hot+neutral system with a GFCI/RCD is somewhere in between.
#3 is a big deal in some interesting cases. Electric stations and similar very high voltage installations care about things like “step potential” — without sufficiently careful grounding, personnel can get zapped if they are standing near a fault with their feet apart, even if they’re only touching the ground. If you are anywhere near a downed power line and you are not in a vehicle, either hop on one foot or shuffle your feet until you are far away — do not walk normally. If you are in a vehicle and can’t stay in safely (e.g. it’s on fire), jump out so you don’t touch the ground until you are completely clear of the vehicle. Then hop or shuffle as above.
I believe it was called "Project Iceworm"
There is a really nice explanation out there somewhere I read about all the construction techniques they learned and what they very much learned not to do
