578

Site number:

578

Authors:

IBC, GGGC, MRB

Date recorded:

1990/01/23

Reason Sampled:

Soil contamination and environmental process evaluation; sampled to determine extent of contaminant movement by heavy metals from crushed lead acid battery

Description:

Old Marble Point construction camp site, approximately 100m north of Surko Stream, in the heavily disturbed area; much of the area has been modified by attempted burial of the trashed camp site

Altitude:

60 m

Aspect:

Nil

Slope:

0 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Coastal Antarctic

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-18 °C

Frozen ground depth:

70 cm

Frozen type:

Hard ice-cemented

Frozen comment:

70cm

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

Patterned ground:

Nil

Surface weathering or surface features:

Some white salt precipitated beneath some artefact fragments

Soil

Soil parent material:

Sandy gravel till from predominantly marble and gneiss with surface disturbance and crushed artefacts (lead acid battery)

Previous disturbance:

Considerable ground surface disturbance from tracked machinery; crushed lead acid battery with some white salts precipitated beneath; many artifacts scattered around the area but a major USA cleanup in 1998/99

Soil weathering stage:

6 1 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Oceanic subxerous, dry surface horizons but moist in lower horizons

Biological activity:

Nil observed at site