Chemical weathering of rocks on the lassiter coast, antarctic peninsula, antarctica

Abstract

Evidence for chemical weathering in the southern Antarctic Peninsula comes from the discovery, by X-ray diffraction, of illite, mixed-layer chlorite, vermiculite, montmorillonite, and mixed-layer illite-montmorillonite in thin immature soils. The soils occur as small, widely scattered patches developed on middle Cretaceous plutonic rocks of the Lassiter Coast. Soils probablY formed subsequent to fairly recent (Quaternary?) deglaciation; present meteorological data are compatible with an interpretation for slow, present-day chemical weathering. © 1975 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.