647

Site number:

647

Authors:

IBC, GGC, MRB

Date recorded:

1991/12/06

Reason Sampled:

Soil moisture and permafrost investigaation

Description:

4m from the north side of a small lake; 300m E of the Wilson Piedmont Glacier and 400m from the SW of the Marble Point Air Facility; a gently sloping lake edge surface

Altitude:

60 m

Aspect:

SW

Slope:

1 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Coastal Antarctic

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-18 °C

Frozen ground depth:

10 cm

Frozen type:

Hard ice-cemented

Frozen comment:

10cm

Geology

Geological setting:

The surface is a gently undulating till plain formed by retreat of the Wilson Piedmont Glacier; the Marble Point region is an old landscape, with deposits of phillipsite, buried soils and oxidised gneiss, which have been covered by advances of the grounded Ross Ice Shelf; the sediments adjacent to the Wilson Piedmont Glacier have been modified by runnoff water flows and fluctuations in pond levels

Patterned ground:

Nil

Surface weathering or surface features:

Soft moist ground surface

Soil

Soil parent material:

Gravelly sand from granodiorite, gneiss and marble with some lake edge sediment reworking

Previous disturbance:

Pond levels modified by stopbanking; vehicle traffic route nearby; intermittent human visits

Soil weathering stage:

6 1 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

A wet site adjacent to (4m) a small lake; the lake level fluctuates from year to year; adjacent lake level is 10cm below the soil surface

Biological activity:

Moss adjacent, a cyanobacterial mat covers the surface