Ice.

What does it do to the soil?

In arctic regions the subsoil is permanently frozen (permafrost). Ice accumulates

in lenses or wedges, which grow due to the thermal gradient. Thus patterned
ground develops with hummocks and trenches, often in polygonal forms.

In other cases low-centred polygons develop, which flood during summer with
melting water from snow and the upper part of the frozen ground.

Stones in the soil are pushed upwards to the surface by ice accumulating
underneath the stones. On gentle slopes long stripes of stone lines develop
also under the influence of solifluction, slow soil creep over the permafrost.

Hummocky ground, caused by frost heaving, with typical tundra vegetation,

north Canada.

Cross-section through a hummock.

Large ice lens in peat. Such ice lenses may grow huge, eventually forming a
"pingo".

Characteristic for Cryosols is the layer of cryoturbation. Through the action

of freezing and thawing, soil horizons get disrupted and swirl-like patterns
develop.

Permafrost at shallow depth under an earth hummock.

Ice layer in a Histic Cryosol.

Cryosols often have a Histic surface

horizon, which develops under the wet
conditions caused by water stagnating
on the permafrost.

Small ice lenses in the subsoil of a Cryosol.

Ice wedge in a Histic Cryosol.

Vegetation moves with the movements in the soil caused by cryogenic processes.
Oblique and fallen trees are evidence of these movements and give rise to local
names such as "drunken forest".

Large ice lenses may eventually develop into a pingo (dome-shaped mound in
tundra regions with a core of ice; the name stems from Eskimo).

When the earth layer on top of the pingo breaks, the ice core starts to melt. The
earth material will slide down over the surface of the melting ice and is deposited
in a wall around it. The ice core will eventually disappear completely, leaving the
wall around a lake behind.

Such morphological features are also found in formerly periglacial regions

such as The Netherlands. The small lake in the centre-right of the photograph is
such a "pingo ruin", evidence of the arctic conditions that once prevailed here.