Massive ground ice and ice-cored terrain near Sabine Point, Yukon Coastal Plain

Abstract

Massive ground ice, 5–6 m in thickness, is exposed within retrogressive thaw flow slides near Sabine Point, Yukon Territory. The ice is present near the upper surface of Buckland Till and is overlain and thaw truncated by mudflow sediments and a thick unit of peat and organic silt. Cryotextural and petrographic analyses suggest that the ice formed primarily by segregation processes. The ice occurs within an area of rolling terrain, surrounded by lacustrine basins. This may form a remnant of an initial post-Buckland surface, degraded by multiple cycles of thermokarst during the period 14 000 to 8000 years BP.