Frost wedging

Frost wedging is the cycle of daytime thawing and refreezing at night. This cycle causes large rock masses, especially the rocks exposed on mountain tops, to be broken into smaller pieces. 

The natural thermal fluctuations in saturated soils result in the deformation in the direction of the heat flux vector of the material known as frost heave. We endow the term with quotations for the simple fact that the phenomenon can be explained by no single mechanism. There are two very important manifestations of frost heave. Perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing and curious is the cryoturbation of land forms into impressive features including sorted stone circles and ice wedge polygons. The motion of the soil on this scale has severely deleterious effects on man-made structures such as pipelines. Although there is a contrast between observing naturally oc-... 

---