![Pingos are intrapermafrost ice-cored hills, 3–70 m (10–230 ft) high and 30–1,000 m (98–3,281 ft) in diameter.[1]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Pingos_near_Tuk.jpg "Pingo - Wikipedia")
Pingo - Wikipedia
Pingos are intrapermafrost ice-cored hills, 3–70 m (10–230 ft) high and 30–1,000 m (98–3,281 ft) in diameter.[1] They are typically conical in shape and grow and persist only in permafrost environments, such as the Arctic and subarctic.[2] A pingo is a periglacial landform, which is defined as a non-glacial landform or process linked to colder climates.[3] It is estimated that there are more than 11,000 pingos on Earth.[4] The Tuktoyaktuk peninsula area has the greatest concentration of pingos in the world with a total of 1,350 pingos.[5] There is currently remarkably limited data on pingos.[5]
In 1825, John Franklin made the earliest description of a pingo when he climbed a small pingo on Ellice Island in the Mackenzie Delta.[6] However, it was in 1938 that the term pingo was first borrowed from the Inuvialuit by the Arctic botanist Alf Erling Porsild in his paper on Earth mounds of the western Arctic coast of Canada and Alaska. Porsild Pingo in Tuktoyaktuk is named in his honour.[7] The term pingos, which in Inuvialuktun means conical hill, has now been accepted as a scientific term in English-language literature.[7]
Pingos can only form in a permafrost environment. Evidence of collapsed pingos in an area suggests that there was once permafrost. Pingos that collapse (due to melting of the supporting ice) are called "ognips" ("pingos" spelled backwards).[8]
