Slope hummock development, Fosheim Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada
2011
Lewkowicz, Antoni G.
Slope hummocks, a type of nonsorted patterned ground, are composed of stratified, organic, silty sand, and develop through the interaction of niveo-eolian deposition, solifluction, slopewash, and vegetation growth. Fields of hummocks show consistent patterns: forms on convex slopes increase in height downslope until the channel is reached, whereas those on convexo-concave slopes increase on the upper convexity but are buried by niveo-eolian deposition downslope of the snowbank remnant. These trends can be reproduced using a simple numerical model based on measured slope and snow depth profiles, sediment concentrations in the snow and solifluction rates. The model indicates that hummocks transit slopes of 20–40m in about 2–4ka, a time-frame that is plausible given site emergence, measured rates of solifluction, and published dates for organic horizons within hummocks on northern Ellesmere Island. Sensitivity analyses show that long-term effect of climate warming on hummock heights may differ depending on whether it is accompanied by precipitation increase or decrease. The required combination of two-sided freezing to promote plug-like movement, incomplete vegetation cover and thin snow that enable eolian erosion during winter and spring, and vegetation growth in snow-bed sites to stabilize niveo-eolian deposits may explain why these forms are important regionally but apparently are not present throughout the Arctic.
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