Dating with patterned ground, Victoria Land, Antarctica

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Dating with patterned ground, Victoria Land, Antarctica

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Patterned ground in Victoria Land consists commonly of sand-wedge polygons in dry valleys and ice-wedge polygons along the more humid coasts. In most places wedges of sand or ice or composite are growing today at predictable rates dependent on their physical environment. Temperature regimen, lithology, texture, and moisture content control contraction cracks in permafrost. Seasonal and daily thermal changes in permafrost and active layer and vapor pressure gradient in ground and air determine which wedges grow. Their rates of growth differ markedly. Data on physical environment and rates of growth of each type, collected since December 1960, now permit preliminary estimates to be made of age of patterned ground. IF we can assume that permafrost has been present since glaciers vacated the dry areas, even though marked fluctuations in climate may have occurred, patterned ground indicate that deglaciation in all areas visited was not older than late or classical Wisconsin.
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44(1):48
Bibliographic Citation: 
Black, R.F.; Berg, T.E. Dating with patterned ground, Victoria Land, AntarcticaTransactions of the American Geophysical Union44(1):481963