The site is approximately 200 m by 100 m with several tens of m2 occupied by Antarctic vegetation communities, comprised of bryophytes and lichens. The location of vegetation communities is largely driven by water availability and is restricted to wet locations that receive water during the summer snowmelt. Topographic factors, such as micro-topography (e.g. boulders and rocks), water drainage, upstream catchment, slope, and intensity of solar irradiance, all play a key role in vegetation community health and distribution. Within the moss turves, cryo-perturbation produces ridges and valleys on a centimetre scale, causing plants growing on the tops of ridges to be subject to more drying and wind abrasion than those protected in the valleys (Fig. 2(b), Lovelock and Robinson, 2002). This contributes to the turf colour variation, with valleys typically varying shades of green, and ridges ranging from red through brown to black as moss becomes increasingly moribund.