Permafrost and Other Periglacial Landforms
Yukon
Landform Atlas
C.A.Huscroft and P.S. Lipovsky
Periglacial landforms are landforms that
are characteristic of cold environments that are not glacial.
They include environments that are dominated by permafrost processes.
Below are a variety of interactive maps of examples of various periglacial landforms found in the Yukon Territory. The
list is by no means exhaustive, but you will also find links to further
reading.
Please scroll over the icons and click "View Features" to
explore each interactive story map.
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Active Layer Detachment
Failures These landslides involve the detachment of the
thawed or thawing portion of the active
layer from the underlying frozen material. |
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Pingos These mounds
consist of a core of permafrost composed mostly of massive ice produced by
injection of water, covered with soil and vegetation |
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Cryoplanation Terraces These step-like benches are cut in bedrock in
cold climate regions. |
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Rock Glaciers These masses of rock fragments and finer material
contain either interstitial ice or an ice core and they show evidence of past
or present movement on slopes. |
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Patterned Ground This group of features exhibit a discernibly
ordered, more or less symmetrical, pattern of sediment and, where present,
vegetation. |
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Solifluction Features These landform features are produced by slow
downslope flow of saturated unfrozen earth materials and are common in
permafrost areas. |
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Palsas and Palsa-like
mounds A permafrost mound possessing a core of
alternating layers of ice and
peat or mineral soil material |
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Retrogressive Thaw Slumps These landslides are produced by thawing of
slopes that contain ice-rich
permafrost on a slope. |
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Tors These tower-shaped outcrops of rock are common in
landscapes that have experienced long periods of cold climate without
glaciation. |
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Ice Wedge Polygons This type of patterned ground is identified by
its distinctive pattern of angular and multi-sided closed shapes which are bounded by underlying wedge-shaped bodies of ice. |
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Other Periglacial
Landslides These types of landslides are influenced by the
presence of permafrost and are less common in the Yukon. |
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Thermokarst lakes This type of lake fills a depression
formed by settlement of the ground following thawing of ice-rich permafrost or the melting
of buried massive ice. |
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Sheetwash |
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