The upward swelling of soil as ice lenses grow within it during freezing, drawing in and freezing additional groundwater that expands the soil above its original volume. Repeated frost heave disrupts pavement, foundations and pipelines in cold regions and contributes to the sorted patterns of stones seen in patterned ground.
Facts
Partially Attested
Scientific Consensus YearThe source says only that by 1930 Stephen Taber had disproved the molar volume expansion hypothesis, so 1930 is the latest date by which the ice-lens water-migration mechanism was established, not a stated consensus year. Process Type Connections
Causes
Source Pingo Formation (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Frost heaving, Wikipedia
Lead paragraph, first sentence
Frost heaving (or a frost heave) is an upwards swelling of soil during freezing conditions caused by an increasing presence of ice as it grows towards the surface, upwards from the depth in the soil where freezing temperatures have penetrated into the soil (the freezing front or freezing boundary).
Historical understanding of frost heaving section, first Taber paragraph
By 1930, Stephen Taber, head of the Department of Geology at the University of South Carolina, had disproved the hypothesis that frost heaving results from molar volume expansion with freezing of water already present in the soil prior to the onset of subzero temperatures, i.e. with little contribution from the migration of water within the soil.
View the SourcePingo Formation (Wikipedia)
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