When Water logs, Soil Flows, and this mechanism is what we call Solifluction. That said, Solifluction is a term used for the slow downhill flow of soil in regions of the Arctic Ocean. It takes place slowly and is computed in millimeters or centimeters per year.
Slow solifluction acts much slower than some geochemical fluxes or than other erosion processes. The relatively low rates at which solifluction operates contrast with its occurrence over wide mountain areas and periglaciated lowlands. Since solifluction is associated with humidity and cold climates it can be used to infer past climates.
Answer: Solifluction is an extensive phenomenon in the alpine and subalpine ecotones of high mountain regions as well as in polar and subpolar places. Solifluction is a unique kind of periglacial mass wasting in both permafrost and non-permafrost settings.
The term solifluction was appropriated to refer to these slow processes, and therefore excludes rapid periglacial movements. In slow periglacial solifluction there are not clear gliding planes, and therefore skinflows and active layer detachments are not included in the concept.
Solifluction occurs during the summer season thaw when the water in the soil is trapped by frozen permafrost underneath it. This waterlogged alluvium moves down slope by gravity, supported along by freeze-and-defrost cycles that thrust the top of the soil outward from the slope (a process of frost heave).
The major indication considered by geologists for solifluction in the landscape is hillsides that possess lobe-shaped slumps, same as small, thin earthflows. Other signs of identifying solifluction include patterned ground, signs of order in the stones and soils of alpine landscapes.
What is solifluction must now be clear to you. But do you know how a landscape affected by solifluction looks? It looks the same as the bumpy ground yielded by substantial landsliding but appears more like fluid, like melted ice cream or molten/diluted cake frosting.
Solifluction in geology is one of the forms of creep that happens either in high altitudes or in cold climates where the mass of the saturated rock waste comes down the slope.
Various Research activities carried out at the site depleted substantially in recent years, because of the personnel changes. Besides this site, little is known about recent solifluction movement rates in other regions of the Austrian Alps.
All studied solifluction lobes were situated in the central part of the Hohe Tauern mountain, central Austria, in a 38 km (west–east) by 11 km (north–south) large-scale region.
Since solifluction is associated with humidity and cold climates it can be used to infer past climates.
In the original sense it meant the movement of waste saturated in water found in periglacial regions. However it was later discovered that various slow waste movements in periglacial regions did not require saturation in water, but were rather associated to freeze-thaw processes. The term solifluction was appropriated to refer to these slow ...
It has been suggested that solifluction might be active on Mars, even relatively recently ( within the last few million years), as observed Martian lobates bear many similarities with solifluction lobes known from Svalbard.
On the other hand, movement of waste saturated in water can occur in any humid climate, and therefore this kind of solifluction is not restricted to cold climates.