The effect is effectively complete blockage. I collide with it, my followers collide with it, and so do the draugr or whatever else happens to live down there. They can't be jumped over. Arrows and spells bounce off of them. I've looked all around where these barriers are and there isn't any indication that anything is wrong.
Sometimes if you hop and strafe back and forth along its edge long enough, you can pass through. Other times you slip outside the map and start that long fall into grey.
I'm using a handful of mods, but these are the same mods I was using on the previous installation where I had no problems. Besides, as far as I can tell, none of them make any changes to dungeon maps.
Any idea what might be causing this or how to fix it?