Hydrology and Hydrogeochemistry of the South Fork, Wright Valley, Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica

• Main Author: Harris, Henry John Hayden
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1981
• Subjects: Hydrology; Austral; Don Juan Pond; South Fork; Victoria Land; Wright Valley; Antarc*; polar desert
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/68064

Complex, dynamic hydrogeochemical systems--involving the transport and fractionation of water and solutes--occur in the rocks, surficial materials, and surface waters of the south fork of Wright Valley, situated in the ice-free region of Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica. All of these systems have features reflective of the regional polar desert environment, and particularly of the extreme cold and aridity. Groundwater flow systems overlying impermeable frozen ground occur intermittently in soils along the axis of the south fork and sustain small, intermittent ponds. The flow systems transport solutes, effecting the accumulation of salts in topographic lows. Spatial segregation of elements occurs during the translocation of solutes and is facilitated by evaporation and freezing. Relatively insoluble sulfates tend to accumulate in the upper parts both of flow systems and of soil profiles, relatively soluble chlorides in the lower parts. Don Juan Pond is a large, unique Ca>>Na-Cl brine pond situated in a closed basin at the topographically lowest point of the south fork. The floor of the basin is a discharge zone for grounwater brines confined in an underlying dolerite aquifer. Intermittent, freshwater streams fed by melting ground ice enter the basin late in the austral summer. Evaporation and sublimation are, with aerosols, the sole means whereby water leaves the basin. The pond is in a precarious hydrologic equilibrium; the cessation of either streamflow or groundwater flow would cause the pond to go dry. Rapid, transient fluctuations of fluid pressure in the aquifer were recorded at a borehole drilled in the basin. The fluctuations are explained in terms of existing theories for the behavior of fluids in stressed porous media; they are interpreted as evidence of movements in a rock glacier lying near the pond. The characteristics of the fluctuations suggest that the causative movements were small and abrupt and involved a large part of the rock glacier. The major element chemistry of the brines ...