Home▸Geology & Earth Science▸Patterned Ground: How Permafrost Sorts Stones into Polygons

❄️ Patterned Ground: How Permafrost Sorts Stones into Polygons

Explore how repeated freeze-thaw cycles in permafrost soils drive convective sorting that organizes stones and fine sediment into polygons, circles, and stripes.

Geology & Earth Science3DModerate60 FPS🌍 Earth ❄️ Ice & Cold

The simulation demonstrates how frost-heave-driven convective sorting transforms uniform soil and stones into circles, polygons, or stripes depending on slope angle and the intensity of freeze-thaw cycling.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the slope angle and freeze-thaw cycle intensity sliders to watch the sorting pattern reorganize in real time between circular, polygonal, and striped forms.

💡 Did You Know?

Some ice-wedge polygon networks visible in modern satellite imagery are relict features left over from the last ice age, preserved in ground that is no longer even underlain by permafrost.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore how repeated freeze-thaw cycles in permafrost soils drive convective sorting that organizes stones and fine sediment into polygons, circles, and stripes.

permafrostpatterned groundfrost heaveperiglacialsoil sortingcryoturbationarctic geologyfreeze-thaw

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install