Cryostratigraphy

Ground ice provides an important archive of permafrost and environmental history, underpinning the cryostratigraphic analysis of permafrost. Cryostratigraphy is essentially the geological study of layers or other mappable bodies within ice-rich permafrost in order to interpret permafrost history. Exposures or cores of ice-rich permafrost can be described stratigraphically in terms of cryostructures, cryofacies, and ice contacts. Significant cryostratigraphic features in present-day permafrost regions include: (1) massive ice and icy sediments, (2) ice wedges and soil wedges, (3) a near-surface layer of ground ice (i.e., transition zone), and (4) ice complexes and related deposits.