What causes tree roots are lifting my driveway?
Root systems are shallow. The great majority of a mature tree's structural and absorbing roots sit in the top foot or two of soil, and in central Indiana's dense, poorly drained clay till they stay shallower still because there is no oxygen below. A slab is a warm, moist, uncompacted seam and roots follow it. Add the species that surface-root aggressively here — silver maple above all, plus Norway maple, sweetgum, and willow — and a drive poured close to the trunk in the 1960s with no root barrier, and the outcome was fixed decades ago.
What you'd see
A ridge or hump running roughly toward the trunk; slabs tipped up at a lip you catch a toe on; cracks radiating from one corner; a driveway edge riding up while the center stays flat; asphalt domed with fine alligator cracking over the high point. Underneath it is almost always one or two large buttress roots, not a mat of fine ones.
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