Sastrugi Snow Plain

Sastrugi Snow Plain is an original illustration set in Icelandic Interior Plateau. It lies in high latitudes, where the climate is tundra — too cold for trees.

Hundreds of sharp parallel snow ridges run across a treeless plateau, all aligned the same way, each with a steep chipped face on one side and a shallow ramp on the other. Blue-grey ice shows between some of them. Thin snow streamers skim the surface under solid overcast.

Why are these snow ridges chipped and irregular?

Sastrugi are erosional, not depositional — wind carves them out of packed snow rather than piling them up, which is why the faces are chipped and irregular rather than smooth. They only survive where it is cold enough that the snow never melts and windy enough that it never softens. Exposed ice between ridges shows the wind has scoured right through the loose layer.

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