576

Site number:

576

Authors:

IBC, GGGC, MRB

Date recorded:

1990/01/22

Reason Sampled:

Suspected contamination material

Description:

About 20m west of the Marble Point air facility building, near the edge of a bulldozer track and near the edge of a pond which receives wastewater runoff

Altitude:

75 m

Aspect:

Nil

Slope:

0 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Coastal Antarctic

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-18 °C

Frozen ground depth:

0 cm

Frozen type:

Frozen comment:

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; the pond may be an artificial feature that receives local thaw runoff

Patterned ground:

Nil

Surface weathering or surface features:

Precipitated deposit

Soil

Soil parent material:

A single surface sample of precipitated salt like material with a yellowish colour from near the edge of the pond

Previous disturbance:

Vehicle tracking and chemical contamination from site activity

Soil weathering stage:

Soil moisture status:

Oceanic subxerous,

Biological activity:

Nil observed at site