Connecting changes in erosion and vegetation is necessary for predicting topographic and ecologic change in thawing permafrost landscapes. Formerly periglacial landscapes serve as potential analogs for understanding modern permafrost landscape change, yet compared to paleoenvironmental records at these sites, less is known about concurrent geomorphic processes, particularly their rates and relationships to climate change. Here, we target sediments preserved in a central Appalachian peat bog to reconstruct sedimentation across the last deglacial warming. We use ground-penetrating radar and geochemistry of cored bog sediments to quantify sedimentation timing, style, and provenance. Using 14C dating of sedimentary and geochemical shifts, we connect depositional changes to global climate and local vegetation change. We show that deglacial warming promoted deep soil disturbances via solifluction at ca. 14 ka. In contrast, relatively wetter conditions from ca. 10–9 ka promoted shallow disturbance of hillslopes via slopewash, which corresponds to a time of vegetation change. Our results highlight climate-modulated erosion depth and processes in periglacial and post-periglacial landscapes. The existence of similar erosion and vegetation records preserved regionally implies these dynamics were pervasive across unglaciated Appalachian highlands, aiding in reconstructing erosion responses to warming at a resolution with implications for predicting high-latitude landscape responses to disturbance.

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 20–40 m in about 2–4 ka, 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.

One of the distinguished efforts of A.L. Washburn was to reconstruct mean annual air temperature using periglacial features as climate indicators. This paper reviews existing periglacial indicators and proposes a strategy to improve their thermal resolution based on recent periglacial process studies, with a focus on solifluction and thermal contraction cracking and associated landforms/structures. Landforms resulting from solifluction reflect both the depth subjected to freeze–thaw and the thickness of frost-susceptible soils. The thickness of a solifluction structure can be used to infer the dominant freeze–thaw regime and minimum seasonal frost depth. Ice-wedge pseudomorphs have limited potential as a climate indicator because (1) they mainly reflect extreme winter temperatures, (2) their thermal thresholds depend on the host material, and (3) they need to be distinguished from frost wedges of other origin produced under different thermal and/or material conditions. Monitoring studies of currently active ice wedges suggest that ice-wedge cracking requires a combination of low temperature and large temperature gradients in the frozen active layer. Further field monitoring of periglacial processes and their controlling factors under various climate conditions and in various materials are needed, however, to improve the resolution of periglacial paleoclimate indicators.

A first trench has been excavated for paleoseismological analysis in the German part of the Roer Valley graben, which has experienced several historical earthquakes with a maximum intensity up to VIII on the MSK-scale.The trench has exposed the Rurrand fault as a complex fault zone with at least five separate, SW-dipping, normal fault strands displacing an early Pleistocene terrace of the Rhine river by more than 7 m. The major part of the observed deformation was produced during or after deposition of an overlying unit of stratified loess of middle Weichselian to probably Saalian age. The faulting history is shown to be episodic, with different fault strands active at different times. Growth faulting that would be indicative of continuous, aseismic fault motion has not been observed. Our stratigraphic control is not sufficient to constrain the timing and to provide evidence of the coseismic nature for each observed fault displacement. However, two units of structureless, gravelly loess are interpreted as the result of extensive solifluction triggered by two large surface-rupturing events. This is suggested by the position of these units, which is controlled by the main faults, and by their remarkably young age (< 400 cal. BC), indicated by radiocarbon and OSL datings and by the presence of historic brick fragments. At least two faults show moderate activity that is even younger. Our interpretation is not in agreement with earlier hypotheses that ongoing vertical movements of circa 1 mm/a in the German part of the Lower Rhine graben are the result of aseismic fault creep, but is in line with the results of similar investigations on the southwestern border fault of the Roer Valley Graben in Belgium, which demonstrates the need for further paleoseismological research in this region. The Rurrand fault is presently experiencing aseismic slip on its superficial portion, induced by extensive groundwater lowering for mining purposes. This ongoing deformation seems to be expressed in the trench as diffuse bundles of anastomosing cracks extending up to, and in some cases even into the plough zone, rather than as sharp fault planes which are typical of older, tectonic fault movements.