Same thing happens to roads in Northern Ontario, where it’s known as “frost heaving”. Huge repair bills every spring. Back in the 1970s they built a section of the Trans-Canada Highway in Sudbury, Ontario that doesn’t heave- the roadbed included a mix of gravel and styrofoam chunks. Don’t know what came of the experiment.
Frost heaving is clearly related to frost wedging but applies to a more specific occurrence ...
“Frost heaving (or a frost heave) results from ice forming beneath the surface of soil during freezing conditions in the atmosphere. The ice grows in the direction of heat loss (vertically toward the surface), starting at the freezing front or boundary in the soil. It requires a water supply to keep feeding the ice crystal growth; and the growing ice is restrained by overlying soil, which applies a load that limits its vertical growth and promotes the formation of a lens-shaped area of ice within the soil. Yet the force of one or more growing ice lenses is sufficient to lift a layer of soil, as much as 30 cm or more.
The soil through which water passes to feed the formation of ice lenses must be sufficiently porous to allow capillary action, yet not so porous as to break capillary continuity. Such soil is referred to as “frost susceptible.” The growth of ice lenses continually consumes the rising water at the freezing front.[1][2] Differential frost heaving can crack pavements—contributing to springtime pothole formation—and damage building foundations.[3][4]
Needle ice is essentially frost heaving that occurs at the beginning of the freezing season, before the freezing front has penetrated very far into the soil and there is no soil overburden to lift as a frost heave.[5]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_heaving