Soil moisture, permafrost monitoring and soil climate measurement
Description:
A gently sloping area forming a small bench on a moderately steep slope between Crater Hill and the east coast of Ross Island approximately 150m northwest from the Scott Base buildings; drill hole and access tube site located in the northern end of the disturbed part of an experimental area. Site subsequently abandoned due to loss of drill tube in drill hole
Altitude:
75 m
Aspect:
SE
Slope:
5 °
Location Data
Observer
IBC
GGC
GPS
No
Latitude Longitude DMS
77° 51' S 166° 46' E
77° 51' S 166° 48' E
Latitude Longitude DD
-77.850 166.767
-77.850 166.800
Latitude longitude precision DD
0.008 0.008
0.008 0.008
Locality
Pram Point, Scott Base
Survey
not recorded
Climate
Soil climate zone:
Coastal mountain
Site temperature profile
Depth (cm)
Soil temp (°C)
Notes
0
17
surface
Estimated mean annual temperature:
-18
°C
Frozen ground depth:
0 cm
Frozen type:
Hard frozen and ice cemented with segregated ice
Frozen comment:
At ground surface
Geology
Geological setting:
The deposit comprises volcanics of the McMurdo Volcanics Formation mainly as scoriaceous flows; the surface materials are a thin cover of mainly fractured bedrock with addition of glacially derived granular and pebble clasts from outside the immediate area; the volcanic bedrock has been considerably fractured by freeze thaw; the surface age is probably very late Pleistocene (Ross Sea Glaciation) having been modified by McMurdo Sound filling glacial ice
Patterned ground:
Weakly developed and without distinctive trough expression or well developed net pattern
Surface weathering or surface features:
Freshly cut surface is uniformly greyish brown without weathering features
Soil
Soil parent material:
Fragmented bouldery volcanic bedrock with some additions of glaciogenic finer materials, in part with some modification by slope drift processes; surface of the soil to approximately 30cm depth was removed by bulldozer
Previous disturbance:
No evidence of past mechanical disturbance at the immediate trial site area but moderate foot traffic disturbance is very likely; present disturbance includes the presence of numerous particles of introduced organic and inorganic materials; at this site the active layer has been removed