"Suzy O" wrote:
This is very common and proper for maples. Repeat after me, "surface
roots are good". If you look closely, you can see that they look the
same as the bark of the trunk, not like roots typically buried under
soil. Piling soil on these will eventually cause them to rot & the rot
will travel into the vascular system of the tree, eventually killing it.
Best bet is to remove whatever soil, grass, etc. that's over the surface
roots and replace with any mulch except! stone or marble, which holds too
much heat over the roots.

Hope this helps.

Suzy O, Zone 5 Wisconsin

Yep! They can also be chopped out but that's a short term fix since you're
actually root pruning when you do that, and so you're encouraging more
surface roots to fill that area in.