The effects of frost action and solifluxion around Baffin Bay and in the Cambridge District

Abstract

These studies constitute part of the geographical results of the Wordie Arctic Expedition, led by Mr. J. M. Wordie of St. John's College, Cambridge, to Melville Bay and the east coast of Baffin Land in the summer of 1934. It was found that some of the arctic soil forms had strong similarities to structures observed in the Pleistocene gravels of the Cambridge area, and that, treated together, these forms and structures would throw new light on the mechanics involved in their formation. The studies are divisible into three portions: frost cracking, polygonal structures, and solifluxion. I. Frost Cracking Travellers in northern and eastern Siberia report that the tundra, in places, is scarred and seamed by ramifying linear depressions flanked by low ridges, the depressions being marked out by a darker growth of mosses, generally interlacing to form roughly polygonal features many feet across. They have not, so far as is known, been excavated (Sukatchev 1911, Nikoroff 1928). Leffingwell (1919) observed frost cracks occurring in Alaska only in “muck”, though Smith (1909, p. 272), writing on the Nome deposits, noted a “series of ramifying streaks of a black peaty material cut in irregular directions across the layers of sand and gravel”, which streaks he attributed to frost cracking. Leffingwell (1919, p. 211) also noted “frequently straight lines leading across the gentle undulations of sandspits”, though he saw no polygonal forms in such places. However, his classic treatment of the theory of the formation of ground ice led him to generalize on

DeKalb Mounds: A Possible Pleistocene (Woodfordian) Pingo Field in North-Central Illinois

“…When hydrostatic pressure is sufficient, mud, sand, and even gravel may be "thrown up to the surface" or into the lakes (Rosenkrantz, 1942). This phenomenon is apparently related to the "suffusion bursts" described by Patterson (1940), and has been taken by Müller (1963) to be characteristic of open-system pingos.…”

Polygonal ridge patterns on the dissected Sepik piedmont plain, New Guinea

“…The randomness is due to the original spacing of the seeds. A similar theory, for two dimensions, was used to explain the polygonal nature of patterned ground by Paterson (1940).…”

Pleistocene Ice Wedges in North‐east Yorkshire

“…Good photographs of such patterns are reproduced by Weickmann (1932)-taken from the Gruf Zeppelin during its flight over the Taimyr Peninsula in 193r-and by Washburn (1947), Hogbom (1907), Polunin (1934) ~ Taber (1943), and Cabot (1947). Brief descriptions of similar systems are given also by Gripp (1929), Paterson (1940), and Elton (1927), whilst Leffingwell, in addition to photographs, produced a plane-table map giving a very good idea of the polygonal pattern. But of these writers only two, Leffingwell and Taber, have described vertical sections of the networks, though Yolunin (1932) did record ground-ice between two adjacent polygons on Akpatok Island.…”

“…In Britain such phenomena had not been recognized until comparatively recently, but a number of examples are now known. These are described by Paterson (1940) (1877) which shows what is clearly a small wedge in ravels…”