accurate rna structural prediction remains challenging, despite its increasing biomedical importance. sampling secondary structures from the gibbs distribution yields a strong signal of high probability base pairs. however, identifying higher order substructures requires further analysis. profiling (rogers & heitsch, nar, 2014) is a novel method which identifies the most probable combinations of base pairs across the boltzmann ensemble. this combinatorial approach is straightforward, stable, and clearly separates structural signal from thermodynamic noise.