Brief Communication: Mimicking periglacial landforms and processes in an ice-rich layered permafrost system with polydispersed melamine materials: a new concept

Abstract. This paper presents results on testing polydisperse melamine material versus sand for laboratory ice-rich layered soil system under thawing conditions. We demonstrate the potential of using polydisperse melamine particles in the aim of mimicking the permafrost geomorphological degradations and landslide found in periglacial field environments. We stress that this type of particles, designed for flow and sedimentary processes in river due to their light particle density and the granulometric size they span, are as well adequate for modeling more realistic geomorphological thawing features observed in cryosphere environments such as slump blocks.