assessment of environmental impacts from past human activities at Vanda Station; determination of the nature of the contamints and the depth of contamination
Description:
on the floor of a shallow elongated gully, 40m SE of the main Vanda Station building; the site is in a shallow depression on the gully floor and close to the toe of a second greywater disposal site
Altitude:
91 m
Aspect:
-
Slope:
0 °
Location Data
Observer
IBC
GGC
GPS
No
Latitude Longitude DMS
75° 50' S 166° 45' E
77° 0.0' S 161° 40.0' E
Latitude Longitude DD
-75.83 166.75
-77.000 161.667
Latitude longitude precision DD
0.08 0.04
0.008 0.008
Locality
Vanda Station, Wright Valley at the eastern end of Lake Vanda
Survey
not recorded
Climate
Soil climate zone:
central mountain
Estimated mean annual temperature:
-20
°C
Frozen ground depth:
35 ~ cm
Frozen type:
dry frozen
Frozen comment:
~35cm
Geology
Geological setting:
the rocks of the area are granodiorites that have been cut with lamprophyre dykes and form a strongly undulating ridge and gully topography as a result of ice over riding from down-valley and up-valley glaciations and to a lesser extent, subaerial weathering; cryogenic weathering, probably assisted by repeated past rises and falls of waters in Lake Vanda, has generally given rise to a heavily fractured upper bedrock surface with common angular platy boulders; sands, derived partly from sorted lake sediments and also from aerial erosion fill most of the rock fracture interstices
Patterned ground:
Surface weathering or surface features:
Soil
Soil parent material:
wind sorted granular sand largely derived from disaggregating granodiorite
Previous disturbance:
a lower slope at a site of disposal of domestic waste waters; a previous camping site with a nearby accumulation of old camp refuse
xerous; soil surface very occasionally moistened by summer snowfall; lower horizons are wet probably as a result of inflow of water from rising Lake Vanda