Climatic Zonality of Periglacial Landforms in Mountain Areas

The alpine periglacial areas of the world can be divided into three distinctive landscape types dominated by one of the follow- ing: active rock glaciers, active block streams, or gelifluction landforms. These also correspond to distinct climates, the active rock glaciers occurring under cold, humid conditions; the active block streams in cold, dry climates; and gelifluction-dominated landforms occurring in warmer areas. These have distinct ranges of mean annual temperature and precipitation, which can be used in interpreting climatic changes based on distribution of fossil landforms.