136

Site number:

136

Authors:

IBC, GGC

Date recorded:

1965/01/19

Reason Sampled:

Soil characterisation

Description:

About 2km SSE of Upper Victoria Glacier and on the northeast side of Upper Victoria Lake; a hummocky recent lateral/terminal moraine surface of the Upper Victoria Glacier

Altitude:

600 m

Aspect:

Nil

Slope:

0 °

Climate

Soil climate zone:

Central mountains

Estimated mean annual temperature:

-23 °C

Frozen ground depth:

40 cm

Frozen type:

Hard ice-cemented

Frozen comment:

40cm

Geology

Geological setting:

Tills in this part of Upper Victoria Valley were mapped by Calkin (1964) as Packard Drift; the deposits vary greatly in character and in many places may have been reworked by fluvial or aeolian processes and are sandy or fine gravelly; scattered surface boulders overlying sands have probably been dropped from retreating ice onto proglacial sediments

Patterned ground:

Well developed 10m polygons with active 1m deep cracks and raised borders; much windblown sand in polygon cracks

Surface weathering or surface features:

Well developed pebble pavement; some salts beneath larger surface stones

Soil

Soil parent material:

Fluvially reworked and sorted sandy sediments with a thin drift mantle

Previous disturbance:

Nil

Soil weathering stage:

6 2 (Campbell & Claridge 1975)

Soil moisture status:

Xerous to subxerous; hollows are moist

Biological activity:

Algae in ponds