569

Site number:

569

Authors:

IBC, GGGC, MRB

Date recorded:

1990/01/20

Reason Sampled:

Permafrost and soil moisture investigations

Description:

On an uneven surface, about 20m from the eastern side of the Marble Point runway, near the northern end, on a scraped ground surface, between sidecast rows

Altitude:

70 m

Aspect:

nil

Slope:

0 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Coastal Antarctic

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-18 °C

Frozen ground depth:

60 cm

Frozen type:

Hard ice-cemented

Frozen comment:

60cm

Geology

Geological setting:

The land surface is a gently undulating till plain formed by retreat of the Wilson Piedmont Glacier; The Marble Point region is an old landscape, as evidenced by deposits of phillipsite, buried soils and oxidised gneiss, which have been covered by advances of the grounded Ross Ice Shelf; later ice retreat and glaciological features have been controlled by changes in the stranded Wilson Piedmont Glacier; the till mantle is patchy and dominated largely by locally occurring rocks; at this site, surface soil was removed, circa 1958, for construction activity

Patterned ground:

Nil

Surface weathering or surface features:

A disturbed (scraped) surface without pavement development

Soil

Soil parent material:

Disturbed till materials from granodiorite, marble and other basement rocks with some layering, over shattered, partly oxidised gneissic rock

Previous disturbance:

Surface scraped for construction materials

Soil weathering stage:

6 1 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Oceanic subxerous

Biological activity:

Nil observed at site