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Permafrost processes such as thermal contraction generating cracks which eventually become ice wedges and solifluction – gradual movement of soil down the slope as it repeatedly freezes and thaws – often lead to the formation of ground polygons, rings, steps and other forms of patterned ground found in arctic, periglacial and alpine areas ...
[15] [1] The vertical headwall is steep and ice-rich; the downsloped headscarp is a "low-angled scar zone" composed of thawed slurry; the lobe is a tongue of debris in active slumps which is composed of saturated materials that flowed downslope. [15] Retrogressive thaw slumps are slope failures due to abrupt thawing of ice-rich permafrost. [16]
The zero-curtain effect occurs in cold (particularly periglacial) environments where the phase transition of water to ice is slowed due to latent heat release. The effect is notably found in arctic and alpine permafrost sediments, and occurs where the air temperature falls below 0°C (the freezing point of water) followed by a rapid drop in ...
Example of a periglacial landscape with both pingos and polygon wedge ice near Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada. Periglaciation (adjective: "periglacial", referring to places at the edges of glacial areas) describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing and freezing, very often in areas of permafrost. The meltwater ...
"Retreating glaciers, reduced snow and ice cover and thawing permafrost are having a major impact on mountain ecosystems, communities and economies and will have increasingly serious repercussions ...
Overview of the cryosphere and its larger components [1]. The cryosphere is an umbrella term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form. This includes sea ice, ice on lakes or rivers, snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost).
The initiation of a thaw lake begins with the degradation of ice-rich permafrost. The natural inception of thermokarst lakes can be demarcated into two separate processes; whether in continuous or discontinuous permafrost. In continuous permafrost, water accumulates when ice veins and polygonal ground are present. [17]
In Russia's far northeastern Yakutia region, local scientists are performing an autopsy on a wolf frozen in permafrost for around 44,000 years, a find they said was the first of its kind. Found by ...