What's a pingo? It's a giant frost heave.
A pingo, also called a hydrolaccolith, is a mound of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic, subarctic, and Antarctica that can reach up to 70 metres in height and up to 2 kilometres in diameter. The term originated as the Inuit word for a small hill. The plural is 'pingos'. A Pingo is a periglacial landform, which is defined as a nonglacial landform or process linked to colder climates.
Pingos can only form in a permafrost environment. Evidence of collapsed pingos (ognip) in an area suggests that there was once permafrost. Pingos eventually break down and collapse. The current estimate is that pingos can last about 1000 years.
Tuktoyaktuk (where the first season of Ice Road Truckers was filmed) in the Mackenzie Delta of the Northwest Territories has one of the highest concentrations of pingos, with some 1,300 examples. Pingo National Landmark protects eight of these features. Other places with pingos include Alaska, Greenland, and the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. Some old pingo ruins can be found in Norfolk, England (in the Breckland) and in the Netherlands, near Zwaagwesteinde in the province of Fryslân, and also in the provinces of Drenthe and Groningen.
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