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Frost weathering is a collective term for several mechanical weathering processes induced by stresses created by the freezing of water into ice. The term serves as an umbrella term for a variety of processes, such as frost shattering, frost wedging, and cryofracturing.
Photograph taken 21 March 2010 in Norwich, Vermont. Frost heaving (or a frost heave) is an upwards swelling of soil during freezing conditions caused by an increasing presence of ice as it grows towards the surface, upwards from the depth in the soil where freezing temperatures have penetrated into the soil (the freezing front or freezing boundary).
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 may refreeze in ice wedges and other structures.
Studies from 1990 have demonstrated that rock fracture by ice segregation (i.e., the fracture of intact rock by ice lenses that grow by drawing water from their surroundings during periods of sustained subfreezing temperatures) is a more effective weathering process than the freeze-thaw process which older texts proposed. [1]
Thermal stress weathering is an important mechanism in deserts, where there is a large diurnal temperature range, hot in the day and cold at night. [14] As a result, thermal stress weathering is sometimes called insolation weathering, but this is misleading. Thermal stress weathering can be caused by any large change of temperature, and not ...
If we can’t have snow, we might as well learn what all that other frozen precipitation is.
The freezing and thawing action of the ice enlarges, widens, or causes further cracks in the bedrock as it changes volume across the ice/water phase transition (a form of hydraulic wedging), gradually loosening the rock between the joints. This produces large chunks of rock called joint blocks.
It is a complex of processes that includes freeze–thaw action (weathering by the alternate freezing and melting of ice), mass movement (the downhill movement of substances under gravity), and erosion by meltwater which is the main agent of the surroundings' influence. [5] A seasonal snowpatch on the south east side of Mount Kosciuszko, Australia.