En palsmyr sydost om Kebnekaise

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Abstract
The author has examined a marsh with palses (from a Finnish word) in the high mountains SE of Kebnekaise, Lapland, Sweden. The palses are hummocks of frozen peat permanently stratified with ice, in which it is very difficult to force one's way down. The examined pals was > 2 m deep. A rough picture of the ice stratification is shown in Fig. 8. There are principally two theories of the development of the palses: 1. the opinion of Kihlman that they are erosion residuals from a coherent marsh area; 2. the opinion of Fries that the peat mass is raised by peat soaked in from the sides when the thawing caused a reduction in pressure at the bottom of the pals. According to the opinion of Fries the freezing commences in the small hummocks, which stick up through the snow. But then, according to the author, the ice layers are formed in the peat between different peat layers, in hollows etc., where the water is transported by a capillary action from below and from the sides. In that way the lower parts of the peat become quite dried up, more water is then soaked in from the unfrozen marsh. Possibly it happens periodically (every year?). The interior of the pals is therefore built up alternately of peat (1–2 cm) and ice (2–5 cm). Round the pals is a depression with water, the pals lagg, Fig. 4 (after the lagg at the raised bogs). It is probably formed by the increased burden of the heavy pals. The results of pollen analysis (Figs. 7–9) have shown that the accumulation of peat in the pals is ended earlier than on the surface of the marsh. The reason is probably that the upper part of the pals is withdrawn from the contribution of water that is necessary for the plants, of which peat is formed. The distribution of the palses in Sweden (Fig. 10) is determined by the curve for 120 days with — 10° C.

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