746

Site number:

746

Authors:

IBC, GGC, DSS

Date recorded:

1994/01/09

Reason Sampled:

For determination of sources and levels of soil contaminants around Scott Base

Description:

SS13 T2; approximately 200 m northwest of the water storage tanks on a flattish step in the landscape in a slightly concave slope

Altitude:

45 m

Aspect:

-

Slope:

0 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Coastal mountain

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-18 °C

Frozen ground depth:

30 cm

Frozen type:

Hard ice-cemented

Frozen comment:

30

Geology

Geological setting:

The materials comprise volcanics of the McMurdo Volcanics Formation mainly as scoriaceous lava flows; the surface materials are a thin cover of mainly fractured bedrock with addition of some glacially derived granular and pebble clasts from outside the immediate area; the volcanic bedrock has been considerably fractured by patterned ground freeze thaw; the surface age is probably very late Pleistocene (Ross Sea Glaciation) having been modified by McMurdo Sound filling glacial ice

Patterned ground:

Nil at site but weakly developed nearby

Surface weathering or surface features:

Some small salt efflorescences; calcium carbonate on undersides of cobbles and boulders; weak pavement development

Soil

Soil parent material:

Undisturbed; fragmented scoria bedrock materials with probable addition of local glaciogenic drift; some small pebbles of non- volcanic rock types; regolith materials are probably in part formed by reworking of slope deposits

Previous disturbance:

Human foot traffic; very few particles of foreign material; some bulldozing for track construction nearby with subsequent permafrost melt out

Soil weathering stage:

6 1 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

The site is on the edge of a moist area that receives moisture from a thawing snow patch

Biological activity:

Small patches of lichen nearby