Full Title: Plugs and Plug Circles: A Basic Form of Patterned Ground, Cornwallis Island, Arctic Canada—Origin and Implications
Author: A.L. Washburn
Patterned ground, encompassing circles, nets, polygons, and stripes, indicate soil, temperature, hydrologic, and other environmental conditions, past and present. Plug circles and plugs, a variety of patterned ground, occur in both nonsorted and sorted forms in permafrost environments.
Study in the Canadian High Arctic and a review of hypotheses of origin support the conclusion that plug circles and plugs are diapiric forms resulting from frost heaving, and that surfaceward seepage accounts for many occurrences. Plug circles and plugs are perhaps transitional to larger forms with prominent stone,y ringlike borders of the classic Spitsbergen variety of sorted circle, whose origin is commonly linked to circulatory soil processes; details of that origin are still somewhat problematical.
Published: 3/01/1997
ISBN: 0813711908
Pages: 92
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