Marine ice-pushed boulder ridge, Beaufort Sea, Alaska

A steep-faced boulder ridge up to 4m high by 300m long was encountered along the arctic coast east of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the summer of 1979. Marine occurrences of similar ridges are rare. Since ice-push sorts cobble- and boulder-sized material in the construction of a ridge, recent onshore excursions of ice due to wind stress on the fast ice are believed to be responsible for building the boulder ridge. Ice push is a mechanism that preferentially sorts cobble- and boulder-sized material from 1-2m water depths and that forms boulder ridges in areas of high boulder concentrations.