[1] Uncertainty surrounds the term,[1] and the effectiveness of the cryoplanation process is held to be limited meaning it can only produce small terraces.
[2] Instead, many of so-called cryoplanation terraces are likely an expression of the underlying lithology and rock structure rather than being unique products of cold-climate processes.
[8] The results of this unique freeze-thaw cycle are customarily found in Arctic periglacial regions of Eastern Siberia and Alaska.
These outcrops are then subject to frost weathering that makes slopes retreat forming extensive blockfields at the base of the bedrock areas.
According to geomorphologists Kevin Hall and Marie-Françoise André the theory has caused confusion because of “the almost complete absence of actual data from active cryoplanation terraces”.