I came across this very spectacular photo of periglacial stripes near Hurry Inlet, Jameson Land, East Greenland.
The vegetated stripes are the rills, mostly about 1 m wide. This is where moisture levels are higher, enabling plants to survive. On the rare occasions when it rains, water runs down these rills, maybe helping to keep them incised beneath the level of the ridges.
The ridges are kept barren because this is where periglacial processes are going on, with frost-heave rearranging things and making it difficult for plants to get established. Most ridges are c 1m - 2m across.
Note that these periglacial stripes run directly down the maximum available slope.
It would be very interesting to get Mike Allen and Charly French's comments on this, since they were the proponents of the periglacial stripes idea in the Stonehenge area close to junction with The Avenue at The Heel Stone. Parker Pearson picked the idea up and ran with it.
ReplyDeleteWell, the silence, so far, is deafening from the Archaeological Quarter. Perhaps in this case it does indeed speak volumes.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why the "periglacial stripes" idea for Stonehenge should be such a big deal -- if they are really solutional rills, what's the problem with that? Or is it just that certain people, having said something that sounded learned, just don't like canvassing expert opinion and changing their minds?
ReplyDeleteIt all seems rater too much like Indiana Jones Territory to me. Just as Indi solved all the mysteries, so these tough guys from the Inner Sanctum of the Stonehenge Riverside Project reveal the Answer to every Question.
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