454

Site number:

454

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 small valley bottom surface south of Seal Glacier; a surface which is topographically above and older than the lowest and youngest valley surface

Altitude:

900 m

Aspect:

N

Slope:

5 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Inland/Coastal Mountain

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-20 °C

Frozen ground depth:

22 cm

Frozen type:

Ice-cemented

Frozen comment:

22cm

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 represents deposits of the Union Glacier at a former level

Patterned ground:

Very weakly developed patterned ground

Surface weathering or surface features:

A moderately developed stone pavement; some slight staining on upper surfaces of boulders but nil beneath; some carbonate encrustations on a few surface clasts; some minor exfoliation and spalling

Soil

Soil parent material:

Young till from quartzitic metasedimentary rocks, some greenish and blackish

Previous disturbance:

Nil

Soil weathering stage:

6 3 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Scattered snow patches behind some boulders; surface horizons slightly moist from thaw of thin recent drift snow

Biological activity:

Nil observed