The object of this study is to test the assumption that cryogenic weathering (here understood as in-situ disintegration of rock under cold-climate conditions including ice as a weathering agent) preferentially breaks up quartz grains. We apply the results of laboratory tests to a Quaternary sediment record. The combination of silt production, relative quartz enrichment in the silt fraction, and quartz grain micromorphology is traced in a multi-100-kyr lake sediment archive as indicator data for cryogenic weathering. Constant cryogenic weathering conditions are inferred for at least the last 220000 years from a lake sediment core of El'gygytgyn Crater, northeast Russia. This is the longest continuous terrestrial archive currently known for the continental Arctic. Quartz enrichment in the fines evolves from seasonal freeze-thaw weathering as demonstrated in laboratory testing where over 100 freeze and thaw cycles crack quartz grains preferentially over feldspar. Microscopic grain features demonstrate that freeze-thaw cycling probably disrupts quartz grains along mineral impurities such as bubble trails, gas-liquid inclusions, or mineralogical sub-grain boundaries. Single-grain micromorphology (e.g. angular outlines, sharp edges, microcracks, brittle surfaces) illustrates how quartz becomes fragmented due to cryogenic cracking of the grains. The single-grain features stemming from the weathering dynamics are preserved even after a grain is transported off site (i.e. in mobile slope material, in seasonal river run-off, into a lake basin) and may serve as first-order proxy data for permafrost conditions in Quaternary records. © 2012 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography.