Abstract
The present conditions of ground surface involving topographic features, geomorphic processes, vegetation cover, and snow release periods were investigated near the subalpine perennial snowbanks on the southern slope of Mount Chokai (39° 05′47″N, 140° 03′08″E, 2236m a.s.l.) in northern Honsyu, Japan. On some slopes covered with vegetation and close to perennial snowbanks or meltwater channels, organic soil layers such as peat and mucks bearing distinctive sand layers as well as gravel layers were found. This suggests that such slopes were overlaid by sands and gravels in the past. The two causes of mixture of clastics in soil layers were assumed: an extension of rubble slopes and an infuluences of streamflow.
