Icing Mound on Sadlerochit River, Alaska

Abstract

Describes an upward arch of soil and ice and its associated aufeis field, examined on the Arctic Slope in northeast Alaska on June 25, 1959. The icing mound consisted of a sinuous ridge about 250 ft. long which terminated in a low dome about 20 ft. high at the north end and in a lower pointed "tail" at the south end. Part of the "tail" had collapsed and revealed an underlying layer of ice about 4 ft thick characterized by a vertical columnar structure and overlain by 2 ft of organic silt and fine sand. The probable cause of uplift of the icing mound was cryostatic pressures accompanying growth of a ground-ice lens and hydrostatic pressures occurring, probably, when water backed up by the formation of aufeis became trapped between the ground-ice lens and permafrost.