FIELD EXPERIMENTS ON PHYSICAL WEATHERING AND WIND EROSION IN AN ANTARCTIC COLD DESERT

Abstract

Field experiments were carried out over a five year period with the aim of understanding contemporary weathering and erosional environments in the Sør Rondane Mountains, an Antarctic cold desert region. These include observations of (1) scaling from rockwalls, (2) disintegration of tuff blocks with or without saline solutions, and (3) abrasion of artificial walls by wind. Monitoring was also made of rock surface temperature and wind speed. Despite frequent temperature oscillations across 0°C, rock scaling due to frost action was generally very slow because of low moisture content in the rockwalls. Exposure to the cold, dry climate led to the rapid disintegration of porous tuff blocks including soluble salts like halite and thenardite. This indicates that rates of weathering are increased greatly with the accumulation of such salts in the bedrock. Although gypsum did not cause any visible damage over four years, its widespread occurrence in heavily damaged rocks demonstrates that increasing gypsum contents may also intensify rock breakdown. The snow-laden katabatic wind resulted in rapid wearing of the windward face of an asbestos board with the peak erosion at 30–40 cm above the ground. Nonetheless, the landforms expected from the unidirectional wind characteristics are by no means common features because of lack of abrasive materials, such as snow and sand particles. These experiments suggest that frost weathering and wind erosion are only locally effective where plenty of moisture or an abrasive material is available, whilst salt weathering and removal of the waste by wind play a major role in constructing erosional landforms over the mountains.