Abstract
Patterned ground is a wide group of periglacial landforms, which has more or less symmetrical surficial shape, such as circle, polygon, net, stripe etc. A substantial part of patterned ground (e.g. ice-wedges, large sorted polygons) is associated with the permafrost environment and forms within the active layer, which underlines its palaeogeographic significance.
Patterned ground can serve as proxy indicator of specific cold climate conditions. Most of patterned-ground types (i.e. ice-wedge casts in lowland areas; sorted polygons, sorted nets, sorted and non-sorted stripes in upland areas) in the Czech Republic are recently non-active.
Sorted circles and earth hummocks at the highest parts of the High Sudetes are the only active patterned ground. Ice-wedge casts in the Czech Republic were found and described only due to accidental discoveries during construction and mining operations.
Most of them were buried or quarried. Currently, we build a database of spatial distribution of ice-wedge casts.
The origin of icewedge casts was tentatively attributed to the LGM. Now we aim to determine the age of patterned ground in both lowland and upland areas and to create innovative palaeogeographic reconstruction of the Quaternary landscape history based on patterned-ground evidence.