453

Site number:

453

Authors:

IBC, GGC

Date recorded:

1979/12/12

Reason Sampled:

Soil weathering examination

Description:

The Enterprise Hills region of the Ellsworth Mountains; north of Parrish Peak on a lower valley surface of recently ablated till on a low hummocky moraine ridge

Altitude:

825 m

Aspect:

Nil

Slope:

0 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Inland/Coastal Mountain

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-20 °C

Frozen ground depth:

10 cm

Frozen type:

Stagnant ice

Frozen comment:

10cm

Geology

Geological setting:

The Ellsworth Mountains comprise a thick sequence of folded metasedimentary rocks comprising limestones, conglomerates and quartzites dating to Precambrian; the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is believed to have fluctuated greatly in response to global sea level changes and evidence of these fluctuations should be present in the tills and soil weathering record; at this site, the till is very young and ice cored

Patterned ground:

Weakly developed nets with slight wedging and concentration of coarse fragments in patterned ground cracks

Surface weathering or surface features:

There is a concentration of surface pebbles which are unweathered

Soil

Soil parent material:

Thin pebble gravel till over stagnant ice; the soil parent material is unweathered but a few altered clasts represent pre- weathered material incorporated into the glacial system

Previous disturbance:

Nil

Soil weathering stage:

1 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Soil is dry but thin drifting snow is immediately thawing and moistening the surface rocks

Biological activity:

Nil observed