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1.
Frost-cracking and ice-wedge growth are fundamental processes within the permafrost environment. Extensive areas of contemporary permafrost terrain are characterised by frost-fissure polygons, formed by repeated thermal contraction-cracking of the ground. The incremental growth of ice veins and wedges along the axes of contraction-cracks contributes significantly to the volume of ground ice in near-surface permafrost. In areas beyond the present limit of permafrost, the recognition of ice-wedge pseudomorphs provides one of the few unambiguous indications of the former existence of permafrost conditions. An understanding of the processes of ice-wedge growth and thaw transformation is essential if contemporary ice wedges are to be used as analogues for Pleistocene frost-fissure structures, in palaeoenvironmental reconstructions.  相似文献   

2.
土楔和冰楔假形及其古气候意义   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
由于土楔及冰楔所处冻土的含冰状况不同,二者对冻土退化的响应不同。土楔的形状及大小乃至其中的充填物可以完整地保存下来,而冰楔在融化过程中经受强烈变形,其原形状很难保存下来,以至无法辨认。已报道的冰楔假形中,有相当部分可能是原生土脉,甚至是活动层土楔。冰楔在多年冻土环境下生长,其假形可以指示古冻土曾存在过。但它与温度之间没有简单的对应关系,因为楔形构造的形成是地-气综合因素相互作用之结果。土楔可以是原生的,也可以是次生的,它与多年冻土环境并无必然联系。  相似文献   

3.
Ice wedges are wedge-shaped masses of ice, oriented vertically with their apices downward, a few millimeters to many meters wide at the top, and generally less than 10 m vertically. Ice wedges grow in and are confined to humid permafrost regions. Snow, hoar frost, or freezing water partly fill winter contraction cracks outlining polygons, commonly 5–20 m in diameter, on the surface of the ground. Moisture comes from the atmosphere. Increments of ice, generally 0.1–2.0 mm, are added annually to wedges which squeeze enclosing permafrost aside and to the surface to produce striking surface patterns. Soil wedges are not confined to permafrost. One type, sand wedges, now grows in arid permafrost regions. Sand wedges are similar in dimensions, patterns, and growth rates to ice wedges. Drifting sand enters winter contraction cracks instead of ice. Fossil ice and sand wedges are the most diagnostic and widespread indicators of former permafrost, but identification is difficult. Any single wedge is untrustworthy. Evidence of fossil ice wedges includes: wedge forms with collapse structures from replacement of ice; polygonal patterns with dimensions comparable to active forms having similar coefficients of thermal expansion; fabrics in the host showing pressure effects; secondary deposits and fabric indicative of a permafrost table; and other evidence of former permafrost. Sand wedges lack open-wedge, collapse structures, but have complex, nearly vertical, crisscrossing narrow dikelets and fabric. Similar soil wedges are produced by wetting and drying, freezing and thawing, solution, faulting, and other mechanisms. Many forms are multigenetic. Many socalled ice-wedge casts are misidentified, and hence, permafrost along the late-Wisconsinan border in the United States was less extensive than has been proposed.  相似文献   

4.
Since 1965, ice-wedge casts have been reported in deposits of sand and gravel in Connecticut. These are wedge forms up to 1.1 m wide and many meters high. Most are single forms, not in polygonal array. They are found in adjoining states as well. Their distribution, dimensions, structure, and fabric and an assessment of the former physical environment preclude their origin as permafrost features. They appear to be tension fractures produced by the loading of coarse clastics on fine clastics near and below the water table where sediments creep toward a stream or depression. Locally movement started with kettle formation during deglaciation. However, some wedges cut horizontal layers of iron-coated sand and gravel and must be younger than those distinctly postglacial phenomena. Moreover, modern B horizons of the overlying soil have moved down into some wedges more than 2 m, indicating that fracturing is still active today. Complex fracture fillings in bedrock also have been attributed to a permafrost origin, but this too seems unlikely.  相似文献   

5.
6.
成都平原第四纪化石冰楔的发现及古气候意义   总被引:5,自引:0,他引:5  
最近,在成都平原西缘,大邑城西氮肥厂附近,斜江河西岸,上新统-下更新统大邑砾岩剖面的北端新开挖的露头上,发现了4条化石冰楔。这里的地理坐标是30°35'N103°31'E,海拔530m.这些冰楔发育于大邑砾岩露头的顶部。其中最大的一条,顶部宽3m,向下延伸2.5m.这些冰楔垂直向下延伸,与大邑砾岩层面斜交。所以,它们是在大邑砾岩沉积之后并经过构造变动后形成的,是大邑砾岩的后生冰楔。化石冰楔的充填物的特征与大邑砾岩有明显差别:前者为棕黄色,后者为灰白-黄色;前者砾径分选较好,砾径较细,一般长5cm~15cm,而后者砾径分选较差,粗大者20cm~30cm;前者的砾石含量高,约95%,后者的砾石含量低,约85%;前者砾石ab面产状无优势方向,而后者的ab面产状显示优势方向,倾向170°~210°,倾角30°~40°.由于两者有上述差别,所以,化石冰楔在露头上可以被识别出来。采用ESR法测定冰楔充填物的时代为0.171Ma.由此看来,这些冰楔的形成时代可能相当于V28-238深海岩心氧同位素曲线第6气候期(0.195Ma~0.128Ma),也可与中国黄土L2~5(0.195Ma~0.180Ma)和L2~4(0.180Ma~0.167Ma)所记录的气候波动和青藏高原倒数第二次冰期对比。
一般认为,冰楔是多年冻土的指示器,所以这些化石冰楔反映了成都平原在第四纪曾一度发育多年冻土。据研究,冰楔只能形成于年均温<-6℃的地方,高海拔多年冻土下界大致与-2℃~-4℃年均等温线相符。现今,大邑附近年均温约16℃.那么,化石冰楔形成时期,成都平原年均温至少比现今下降了18℃.   相似文献   

7.
An accumulation terrace close to the El'gygytgyn Impact Crater in northeastern Siberia contains stratigraphic and periglacial evidence of the paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic history and permafrost dynamics during late Quaternary time. A succession of paleo active-layer deposits that mirror environmental changes records periods favorable for the establishment and growth of ice-wedge polygonal networks and sediment variations. These two elements of the periglacial landscape serve as complementary paleoenvironmental archives that can be traced back to ∼ 14,000 cal yr BP. The slope sediments and the ground ice contained therein have prominent relative maxima and minima in properties (grain size, total organic content, oxygen isotopes). They document a regional early Holocene thermal maximum at about 9000 cal yr BP, followed by a transition to slightly cooler conditions, and a subsequent transition to slightly warmer conditions after about 4000 cal yr BP. Results from sedimentary analysis resemble morphological and geochemical (oxygen and hydrogen isotopes) results from ice wedge studies, in which successive generations of ice-wedge polygonal networks record warmer winters in late Holocene time. Moreover, peaks of light soluble cation contents and quartz-grain surface textures reveal distinct traces of cryogenic weathering. We propose a conclusive sedimentation model illustrating terrace formation in a permafrost terrain.  相似文献   

8.
Troy L Péwé 《Geoforum》1973,4(3):15-26
Ice wedge casts are the most accurate and widespread indicators of past permafrost. Many ice wedge casts exist in Alaska, some in areas of existing ice wedges. In addition to indicating paleotemperature conditions and a wider distribution of permafrost in Wisconsinan time than now, casts in Alaska also indicate permafrost in Iliinoian and pre-lllinoian time. Hundreds of ice wedge casts are now known in temperate North America and are described from about 22 widespread localities coast to coast in Canada and United States. Permafrost existed in late Wisconsinan time, 20,000 to 10,000 years ago, along the glacial border in temperate United States. Later permafrost formed north of the glacial border as the continental ice sheet withdrew exposing drift to the rigorous periglacial climate. Ice wedge casts indicate that the ? 7 °C mean annual air isotherm was about 2000 km farther south in late Wisconsinan time than now.  相似文献   

9.
Morphological and vegetation mapping and stratigraphic studies were carried out on a 60 by 250 m low–centered polygon field on a flood–plain of the Riviére Deception in the continuous permafrost zone of northernmost Ungava. Analyses of grain size, water and ice content, deformation structures, and macrorests were carried out on drill–core samples, up to a maximum depth of 3.19 m, and radiocarbon dates were obtained from several peat horizons. Five different vegetational habits were identified: uplifted banks, ice–wedge fissures, hummocky centres, wet polygon centres, and water ponds. The stratigraphic analyses revealed many sand layers and organic layers, alternating with a few layers of segregated ice. In the raises banks, brown fen peats represent former wet conditions prior to bank uplift. Total ice volumes of the core samples from polygon centres and banks averaged 60%, and were generally in the form of pore ice. Segregated ice was concentrated in ice wedges. The Low gradient of the polygon field and the shallow active layer are responsible for impded drainage. The origins of this isolated low–centred polygon field are discussed in terms of special local terrain conditions. River flooding since glacio–isostatic emergence at 6000 BP repeatedly spread alluvial sands onto the low flood–plain, which thus became progressively built up to its present elevation. Peat layers buried by these alluvial sands have permitted the changing local drainage conditions to be radiocarbon–dated for the last 2600 years for the core sites. Impeded drainage, low winter temperatures, probable thin snow cover, rapid sedimentation of flood–plain sands, and high volumetric ice contents have created the critical thermal regime necessary for repeated frost cracking in a polygonal pattern, with concomitant ice–wedge dev–elopment. Ice wedges developed at least as early as 2200 BP, causing the formation of low banks. Further growth of ice wedges deformed the peat and sand layers on the bank margins and led to the rise of the latter to heights of 0.5 to 1 m above the intervening low wet polygon centres. More water was then collected in the depressions, leading to a transformations of the vegetation cover from mossy heath to sphagnum bog, wet fen, sedge-covered ponds, and eventually in some cases to open-water pools. The stratigraphic evidence suggests that several generations of high banks formed and disappeared and that their position has changed. Deformation by continued ice–wedge growth has been insignificant since 1000 BP, However. A relatively thick surface peat layer also indicates that sand layers have not been contributed to the polygon field by flooding since ? 500 BP.  相似文献   

10.
Polygonal patterned ground and associated sediment-filled wedges occur in thin-bedded shale in central New Jersey. During a dry growing season, numerous areas of polygonal ground were visible owing to differential growth of vegetation over the sediment-filled fractures. Construction sites where material was removed from the surface prior to excavation also revealed areas of polygonal ground. Measurements of the patterns show networks of polygons with diameters ranging from about 3 m to over 30 m, with an average of approximately 20 m. The wedges examined in vertical exposures range in depth from 25 to 260 cm (average, 125 cm) and in width from 10 to 240 cm (average, 50 cm). The infilling material of the wedges is mostly a sandy loam, although this material is not homogeneous throughout the wedges. The presence of ventifacts and frosted sand grains within the wedges indicates eolian activity during the formation of these features. The polygonal ground and wedge structures exhibit several characteristics similar to those of ice-wedge casts, and available evidence suggests they may have originated as ice-wedge polygons during the last glacial maximum.  相似文献   

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