Below is a diagram of the concept (from an Oklahoma DOT research report) (5/n)

Chip seal is one-size stone chips embedded onto an asphalt membrane (either an emulsion or hot rubberized asphalt.)
The stone chips can be pre-coated with asphalt at a plant, or with emulsion with a pugmill, for better adhesion… (2/n)

Once it fails structurally (on thin pavements). the cracking begins to resemble the back of an alligator, and that’s what the technical name is.
More typically the alligator cracking shows up ok the wheelpaths, but here it started around a transverse crack and seems to have snowballed.

It rained into the morning and it’s winter so the 2019 pavement on this street is mostly wet. Just about the time to begin to see cracks in the asphalt. Mechanics of materials at play, in this case thermal expansion and contraction meeting the narrowest section of pavement to resist the tension