126

Site number:

126

Authors:

IBC, GGC

Date recorded:

1965/01/14

Reason Sampled:

Soil characterisation

Description:

Approximately 1km E of Webb Lake; on the valley floor on a young moraine surface; the site is on the floor of a small moist salty hollow

Altitude:

675 m

Aspect:

Nil

Slope:

0 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Central mountains

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-23 °C

Frozen ground depth:

0 cm

Frozen type:

Frozen comment:

Geology

Geological setting:

Webb Glacier in the upper Barwick Valley has retreated and left a series of till deposits and moraine surfaces of differing ages; the site is on moraines mapped by Calkin as Packard Drift (youngest); the main rock types in the area are dolerite, granite, granodiorite and Beacon Group sediments and the tills have these rocks in them; incipient stream channels connect a number of small frozen lakes and the tills in them have been fluvially reworked

Patterned ground:

Hummocky terrain is probably related to ablation and patterned ground formation

Surface weathering or surface features:

A thin salt precipitation over much of the surface

Soil

Soil parent material:

Fluvially reworked till forming a sandy sediment in a moist depression

Previous disturbance:

Nil

Soil weathering stage:

2 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Xerous to subxerous; the site is moist, probably for a period of 6-8 weeks each summer because of local snow melt

Biological activity:

Nil observed