Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
or younger in the South Shetland and South Orkney Islands off the Antarctic
Peninsula and in coastal East Antarctic. However, valleys of central and southern
Victoria Land may contain soils of Pliocene and Miocene age.
4.5
Summary
Climate is the most important factor infl uencing development of cryosols. There is
a wide variety of climates for cryosols that ranges from maritime to continental. The
mean annual air temperature ranges from +1 °C to −20 °C or colder; the mean
annual precipitation ranges from <10 mm in interior Antarctica to more than
2,000 mm in high-mountain environments. High winds are common in many areas
with cryosols. There is a variety of vegetation in the cold regions, but they are
largely treeless except in the boreal forest or taiga. Birds transfer large amounts of
nutrients from the coast to land in areas fringing the Arctic and Southern Oceans.
Patterned ground is a common landform component in areas with cryosols. These
features may be sorted in circles, nets and stripes, or they may be unsorted in the
form of ice-wedge polygons, frost boils, and earth hummocks. The most common
parent materials are eolian (loess and sand dunes), alluvium, lacustrine, peat, col-
luvium, gelifl uction materials, and beach sediments. These materials may be of
recent age or may extend back as far as the Miocene.
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