Frost heaving (or frost heave) occurs when soil expands upward or outward and contracts due to freezing and thawing. This process can damage plant roots through breaking or desiccation, cause cracks in pavement, and damage the foundations of buildings, even below the frost line. Moist, fine-grained soil at certain temperatures is most susceptible to frost heaving. Soil is unconsolidated rock particles mixed with organic matter from plant decay. ... Divisions Land plants (embryophytes) Non-vascular plants (bryophytes) Marchantiophyta - liverworts Anthocerotophyta - hornworts Bryophyta - mosses Vascular plants (tracheophytes) Lycopodiophyta - clubmosses Equisetophyta - horsetails Pteridophyta - true ferns Psilotophyta - whisk ferns Ophioglossophyta - adderstongues Seed plants (spermatophytes) †Pteridospermatophyta - seed ferns Pinophyta - conifers Cycadophyta - cycads Ginkgophyta - ginkgo Gnetophyta - gnetae Magnoliophyta - flowering plants Adiantum pedatum (a fern... a cow In vascular plants, the root is that organ of a plant body that typically lies below the surface of the soil (compare with stem). ... Desiccation is the state of extreme dryness, or the process of extreme drying. ... This article is about the American English usage of pavement as the durable surfacing of roads and walkways. ... A foundation is a structure that transmits loads from a building or road to the underlying ground. ... The frost line is the level down to which the soil will normally freeze each winter in a given area. ... Temperature is the physical property of a system which underlies the common notions of hot and cold; the material with the higher temperature is said to be hotter. ...

Cause

Originally, frost heaving was thought to occur due simply to the freezing of water in soil. However, the vertical displacement of soil in frost heaving can be significantly greater than the expansion that occurs when ice freezes. In the 1960s, frost heaving was demonstrated in soil saturated in benzene and nitrobenzene, which contract when they freeze. Benzene, also known as C6H6, PhH, and benzol, is an organic chemical compound which is a colorless and flammable liquid with a pleasant, sweet smell. ... Nitrobenzene, also known as nitrobenzol or oil of mirbane, is a poisonous organic compound with an almond odor and chemical formula C6H5NO2. ...

The current understanding is that ice crystals forming in soil draw water from the surrounding soil, in a process similar to freeze-drying. Heat generated by the freezing process prevents lower levels of soil from freezing as well. Depending on the amount of moisture available, a significant amount of soil displacement can result. A red-hot iron rod cooling after being worked by a blacksmith. ...

The earliest known documentation of frost heaving came in the 1600s.

Susceptible soil types

Three conditions are generally necessary for frost heaving to occur:

• freezing temperatures
• moist soil that can conduct water
• a supply of water.

Fine-grained clay as well as sandy soil, which has a large pore size, are poor conductors of water. Silt, with a moderate pore size, is most conducive to frost heaving. Silt refers to soil or rock particles of a certain very small size range (see grain size). ...

Structures created by frost heaving

In Arctic regions, frost heaving for hundreds of years can create structures as many as 60 m high, known as pingos. Frost heaving is also responsible for creating stones in unique shapes such as circles, polygons, stripes, and other patterns. A notable example is the remarkably circular stones of the islands of Spitsbergen. The metre or (in American English) meter (symbol: m) is the SI base unit of length. ... Pingos (singular pingo, from the Inuit word for small hill) are mounds of ice found in the Arctic, subarctic, and Antarctica that can reach up to 60 metres in height and hundreds of metres in diameter. ... Map of Svalbard, showing Spitsbergen in the North Spitsbergen (formerly known as West Spitsbergen or Vestspitsbergen) is the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago, which is situated in the Arctic Ocean and administered by Norway. ...

See also

• Frost
• Ice lens
• Soil
• Frost law

team chaos was ere we owned this website so fuk u. ... Soil is unconsolidated rock particles mixed with organic matter from plant decay. ... Frost Laws are seasonal restrictions on road traffic weight limits and speeds. ...

External links

• Canadian Building Digest article
• The Mechanisms and Effects of Frost Heave
• American Institute of Physics pictures of frost heaving
• Stone Circles Explained, about stone structures created by frost heaving