Bald-Mountain Terraces

(also altiplanation terraces or solifluction terraces), terrace-like areas on the slopes of mountains above the timber line. (Relic bald-mountain terraces are also observed in the upper part of the forest belt.) The terraces are of an irregular shape, slightly inclined in the direction of the base of the slope, and limited by benches up to several tens of meters high. The terraces often form a series of berms descending the mountain slopes. Bald-mountain terraces are the result of frost weathering and solifluction. They are widely found in the northern and polar Urals, in the mountains of eastern and southern Siberia, and in the arctic in the USSR: abroad they are encountered in Canada and Alaska.