585

Site number:

585

Authors:

IBC, GGGC, MRB

Date recorded:

1990/01/24

Reason Sampled:

Soil moisture/salinity relationships investigation

Description:

About 160m northeast of the old Marble Point camp site; approximately 30m away from site 584 on a low 5m diameter rise adjacent to the foot of a gentle slope; the toe of a small nivation hollow; the samples are from three adjacent spots, a & b moist, c & d salty surface, e & f dry and non salty

Altitude:

65 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 an 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; gneiss bedrock outcrops locally

Patterned ground:

Micro polygonal, 10-25cm across, in moist sandy patches

Surface weathering or surface features:

Some surface salt accumulations but very patchy

Soil

Soil parent material:

Reworked till fluvially deposited as sediment by thaw flow from a small nivation hollow

Previous disturbance:

Nil

Soil weathering stage:

1 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Oceanic subxerous, some soil moistening from snow melt but soil moisture distribution is patchy

Biological activity:

Nil