On a bulldozed ridge surface, approximately 1km south of McMurdo Station; the surface has been earlier scraped for earth material and subsequent ground thawing has exposed the natural patterned ground formation; the soil material sampled is in the exposed patterned ground cracks
Altitude:
100 m
Aspect:
Nil
Slope:
0 °
Location Data
Observer
GGC
IBC
GPS
No
Latitude Longitude DMS
77° 49.4' S 166° 40.5' E
77° 49' S 160° 39' E
Latitude Longitude DD
-77.8233 166.675
-77.817 160.650
Latitude longitude precision DD
0.0008 0.004
0.008 0.008
Locality
Ross Island, Hut Point Peninsula
Survey
USGS Ross Island & Vicinity Antarctica 1 250 000, 1986
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 local rocks are scoria flows of the McMurdo Volcanics with a thin cover of drift materials; the landscape originally had a patterned ground covered surface; removal of the surficial material with subsequent thawing has exposed the patterned ground network and the patterned ground cracks have apparent sand wedge infillings with grey sand with a distinctly different colour from the surrounding volcanic materials; many of the larger particles are rounded and included rounded quartz grains indicating a foreign source
Patterned ground:
Disturbed with remnant sand wedges
Surface weathering or surface features:
Unweathered
Soil
Soil parent material:
Granular sand with the coarse fraction from volcanic sources and the fine fraction from windblown materials