362

Site number:

362

Authors:

IBC, GGC

Date recorded:

1972/12/10

Reason Sampled:

Soil weathering examination

Description:

On the SE side of the Wright Valley adjacent to the Meserve Glacier; on the surface between the Meserve and the Hart Glaciers; on a steep upper slope on a granitic bedrock surface

Altitude:

850 m

Aspect:

NW

Slope:

30 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Coastal Mountain

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-24 °C

Frozen ground depth:

22 > cm

Frozen type:

Bedrock frozen

Frozen comment:

>22cm

Geology

Geological setting:

Granite bedrock outcrops on the upper slopes between the Hart & Meserve Glaciers; these surfaces may be above the older Ross Ice Shelf inland advances but may have been covered with upper level Alpine glacier ice

Patterned ground:

Nil

Surface weathering or surface features:

Bedrock exposures are well rounded with crumbly surfaces; dolerite pebble clasts are subrounded and distinctly stained; surface staining is minor; there is a moderately developed pebble and cobble pavement

Soil

Soil parent material:

Thin residual gravelly drift from granite but with some dolerite, over finer drift, on granite bedrock

Previous disturbance:

Nil at site

Soil weathering stage:

3 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Dry soil and site

Biological activity:

Nil observed