460

Site number:

460

Authors:

IBC, GGC

Date recorded:

1979/12/13

Reason Sampled:

Soil weathering examination

Description:

Marble Hills in the Heritage Range of the Ellsworth Mountains; approximately 4km north of Mt Fordell; on a undulating high bench adjacent to the Horseshoe Valley ice sheet; on an undulating landscape about 10m from the crest of a broad ridge

Altitude:

1200 m

Aspect:

N

Slope:

4 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Inland/Coastal Mountain

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-25 °C

Frozen ground depth:

55 cm

Frozen type:

Ice-cemented

Frozen comment:

55cm

Geology

Geological setting:

The Marble Hills area comprise limestone/marble bedrocks with an intermittent cover of till with predominantly sandstone, quartzite, metasedimentary and some ferromagnesian rich rocks; till sequences are not clearly expressed and the till which is from a non local source, may have been reworked by local ice masses; the higher surfaces may have somewhat older till deposits

Patterned ground:

Nil

Surface weathering or surface features:

Some crumbling and disaggregation of boulders; some darker coloured rocks are strongly disaggregated; a moderately developed pavement with reduction of larger clasts; distinct salt encrustations beneath many surface rocks; well developed surface staining

Soil

Soil parent material:

Sandy to silty till of mixed lithology; marble; metasedimentary and felsitic rocks

Previous disturbance:

Nil

Soil weathering stage:

6 3 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Local snow pockets but no obvious thawing or soil moistening

Biological activity:

Nil observed