Both are serious — but they need different repair approaches. We break down the causes, the differences, and what Crax Asphalt does to fix each one properly.

Why Pavement Fails: The Short Version

All asphalt pavement failure traces back to two culprits: water and load. Water gets in through cracks, freezes, expands, and destroys the structural base. Traffic load stresses a weakened base until it collapses. The difference between a pothole and alligator cracking is really a question of which failure mode dominated — and how far along the process has gone.

What Is a Pothole?

A pothole is a bowl-shaped depression where pavement has completely broken away, exposing the base material or sub-base. Potholes almost always start as unsealed cracks. Water infiltrates the crack, freezes and expands in winter, thaws in spring — each cycle widening the crack and loosening the surrounding pavement. Vehicle traffic then knocks out the weakened asphalt pieces, leaving the hole.

Potholes are also a legal liability. A vehicle damaged or a person injured on your property due to a pothole can result in a claim. Commercial property owners and municipalities should treat pothole repair as urgent maintenance, not a cosmetic issue.

What Is Alligator Cracking?

Alligator cracking — also called fatigue cracking or gator cracking — looks exactly like its name: a network of interconnected cracks forming a pattern resembling alligator or crocodile skin. Unlike surface cracks from oxidation, alligator cracking indicates that the structural base beneath the asphalt has failed.

The cause is usually one or more of:

Water damage to the gravel base from years of unsealed surface cracks
Overloading — traffic heavier than the pavement was designed for
Insufficient base depth at original installation
Poor drainage causing the sub-base to remain saturated

The key distinction: alligator cracking is a base failure, not just a surface problem. This matters enormously for repair strategy.

Why the Difference Matters for Repair

A pothole can often be repaired with hot or cold-mix asphalt patching — cutting out the damaged area, cleaning the base, and filling with new material. Done correctly, a patched pothole is durable and long-lasting.

Alligator cracking cannot be fixed with surface patching alone. If you simply fill alligator-cracked pavement without addressing the base failure, the new patch will reflect the same cracking pattern within one or two seasons. The base has to be stabilised — which typically means removing the failed asphalt, regrading and compacting the base material, improving drainage if necessary, and repaving.

The test: Press your foot firmly on the alligator-cracked area. If the pavement flexes or feels soft, the base has failed and surface patching will not hold. If it feels solid, the damage may still be repairable at the surface level. Crax Asphalt will assess this for you free of charge.

What Crax Asphalt Does Differently

We do not patch over problems we know will fail. If we assess a pavement and determine the base is compromised, we say so clearly and quote the correct repair — not the cheapest one that will fail in a season. This is what we mean when we say what we quote is what you pay, and we stand behind our work with a 1-year warranty.

Our pothole repair process: saw-cut clean edges around the damaged area (never a rough hand-cut), clean the base, tack coat the walls, compact new hot-mix asphalt in lifts, and roll to match the surrounding surface grade. The result blends seamlessly and holds up to traffic.

When to Call Us

Do not wait on either problem. A pothole gets larger with every vehicle that drives through it, and every freeze-thaw cycle that hits an active alligator-cracked area causes more base damage. Early intervention is always cheaper. We serve Calgary, Okotoks, High River, Bearspaw, Bragg Creek, Strathmore, Drumheller, Vulcan and all of Southern Alberta — call 403-305-9968 for a free on-site estimate.