Stone runs in the Falkland Islands: Periglacial or tropical?

Excavations of blockstreams (‘stone runs’) on the Falkland Islands reveal an inverted weathering profile that may be indicative of a tropical, rather than periglacial origin for these features. Apparent accumulations of blocks may, in fact, represent the in situ, regolith-stripped remnant of a Tertiary surface. A multi-phase evolution is presented by André et al (2008), that includes chemical weathering, mantle stripping, mass movement and soil forming processes. It is accepted that these polygenetic landforms may have undergone re-working and weathering by subsequent periglacial activity during the late stage Quaternary. The image shows blockstreams on Hardangervidda in Norway (Photo: DTN). For further details, read the full paper:

André, M-F., Hall, K., Bertran, P. and Arocena, J. (2008). Stone runs in the Falkland Islands: Periglacial or tropical? Geomorphology 95(3-4), 524-543.