Most patterned ground along the outer fringe of Antarctica consists of sorted patterns. Nonsorted polygons predominate in the inland mountain ranges and in Victoria Land; they include sand wedges, found in inland dry areas, and ice wedges, found along the more humid coasts and islands of the Ross Sea. The distribution of sorted polygons in wet areas near glacier termini appears to indicate that much more time is required to produce well developed non-sorted polygons than to produce the sorted patterns. It is not yet known whether the areas with sand and composite wedges of maximum size have reached equilibrium, or whether their widths are still changing. Based on wedge growth of 0.3 to 1mm/yr, no locality of nonsorted polygons would have required more than about 10,000 yr to produce the wedges examined to date.