Kadleroshilik Pingo (or Kadleroshilik Mound) is a

pingo Pingos are intrapermafrost ice-cored hills, high and in diameter. They are typically conical in shape and grow and persist only in permafrost environments, such as the Arctic and subarctic. A pingo is a periglacial landform, which is define ...

located about southeast of

Prudhoe Bay Prudhoe Bay is a census-designated place (CDP) located in North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2010 census, the population of the CDP was 2,174 people, up from just five residents in the 2000 census; however, at any give ...

in the U.S. state of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. Rising to an elevation of above the surrounding lake plain, it is the highest known pingo in the world. The pingo's existence was first noted in the 1919 monograph ''The Canning River Region, Northern Alaska'' by

Ernest de Koven Leffingwell Ernest de Koven Leffingwell (January 13, 1875January 27, 1971) was an arctic explorer, geologist and Spanish–American War veteran. During the period from 1906 to 1914, Leffingwell spent nine summers and six winters on the Arctic coast of Alaska ...

. Leffingwell, who had visited the site in 1911, adopted the

Eskimo Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik peoples, Yupik (or Siberian Yupik, Yuit) of eastern Si ...

name for the mound, which he interpreted as possibly meaning "possesses something on top" or "which seems to approach"; he also named the nearby

Kadleroshilik River The Kadleroshilik River is a stream in the North Slope Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. Flowing south to north, it empties into Foggy Island Bay in the Beaufort Sea, about east of Prudhoe Bay. It was named by Ernest de Koven Leffingwell for ...

for the mound. For her dissertation on the ecology of Alaskan pingos, based on studies conducted in the 1980s, Marilyn Drew Walker selected Kadleroshilik Pingo as one of her study sites specifically because of its unusual size. Botanical specimens she collected at the site are in the

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

of the

University of Alaska Museum of the North The University of Alaska Museum of the North is a cultural and historical museum on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. Mission The museum's mission is to acquire, conserve, investigate, and interpret specimens and collections relating to ...

References

Landforms of North Slope Borough, Alaska Patterned grounds {{NorthSlopeAK-geo-stub