826

Site number:

826

Authors:

IBC

Date recorded:

2019/12/15

Reason Sampled:

Soil moisture content at a site for continuous soil temperature recording; the site was sampled at the time of installation of the soil temperature probes

Description:

The site lies within the zone of lake benches formed by former rises in the level of Lake Vanda; to the south, there is some minor broad polygonal patterns indicating some ice cemented ground; the site is about half way up the fan. The temperature recording site is 3m upslope from the eastern LiCl experimental plot; thermocouples were inserted at 5cm, 15cm, 25cm, 35cm, 45cm and 55cm depths

Altitude:

200 m

Aspect:

S

Slope:

8 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Central Mountain

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-20 °C

Frozen ground depth:

35 ~

Frozen type:

Dry frozen

Frozen comment:

~35

Geology

Geological setting:

The site lies within the zone of lake benches formed by former rises in the level of Lake Vanda. The deposits are probably lake sediments that have been subsequently reworked by somewhat mild fan depositional processes from periodic stream flows from adjacent mountain slopes. The deposits have a dominantly sandy texture and are generally weakly to non stratified

Patterned ground:

Weakly developed large polygons

Surface weathering or surface features:

Undisturbed surface with a well developed small pebble pavement with some clasts showing some ventifaction

Soil

Soil parent material:

Partly sorted sandy fan gravel

Previous disturbance:

Nil at site but previous sampling on ground 3m away for LiCl leaching trial

Soil weathering stage:

6 1 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Xerous to subxerous; minimal moisture from snowfall with very low soil moisture contents

Biological activity:

None observed