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Mount Hampton
Mount Hampton is a shield volcano with a circular ice-filled caldera. It is a twin volcano with Whitney Peak to the northwest and has erupted phonolite rocks. It is the northernmost of the volcanoes which comprise the Executive Committee Range in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica and was active during the Miocene. Geography and geology Mount Hampton is the northernmost volcano of the Executive Committee Range in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. It has the form of a symmetrical uneroded shield volcano with an "impressive" appearance and an ice-filled wide caldera. Like other volcanoes in the Executive Committee Range, it is a paired volcano with the northwesterly high Whitney Peak and the southeasterly high Marks Peak, which is the main summit of Mount Hampton. The northwesterly summit is associated with its own caldera, which is partly cut by the Mount Hampton caldera on the southeastern flank and buried by the lava flows from the latter. The centres of the two calderas are about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Byrd Land
Marie Byrd Land (MBL) is an unclaimed region of Antarctica. With an area of , it is the largest unclaimed territory on Earth. It was named after the wife of American naval officer Richard E. Byrd, who explored the region in the early 20th century. The territory lies in West Antarctica, east of the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea and south of the Pacific Ocean portion of the Southern Ocean, extending eastward approximately to a line between the head of the Ross Ice Shelf and Eights Coast. It stretches between 158°W and 103°24'W. The inclusion of the area between the Rockefeller Plateau and Eights Coast is based upon Byrd's exploration. Overview Because of its remoteness, even by Antarctic standards, most of Marie Byrd Land (the portion east of 150°W) has not been claimed by any sovereign state. It is by far the largest single unclaimed territory on Earth, with an area of (including Eights Coast, immediately east of Marie Byrd Land). In 1939, United States President Frankl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interglacial
An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene interglacial began at the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,700 years ago. Pleistocene During the 2.5 million years of the Pleistocene, numerous glacials, or significant advances of continental ice sheets, in North America and Europe, occurred at intervals of approximately 40,000 to 100,000 years. The long glacial periods were separated by more temperate and shorter interglacials. During interglacials, such as the present one, the climate warms and the tundra recedes polewards following the ice sheets. Forests return to areas that once supported tundra vegetation. Interglacials are identified on land or in shallow epicontinental seas by their paleontology. Floral and faunal remains of species pointing to temperate climate and indicating a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fumarolic Ice Tower
A fumarolic ice tower is a tower of ice produced by fumaroles of volcanic activity in an environment whose ambient temperature is below the freezing point of water. They are often underlain by massive ice caves. Mount Erebus, the world's southernmost active volcano, is one producer of these ice towers. The ambient temperature at its location is always well below water's freezing point, and the diffuse degassing of carbon dioxide through the steaming warm ground around its flanks causes ice to first melt, then vaporize, and then accumulate into chimney-like towers. Mount Berlin Mount Berlin is a high glacier-covered volcano in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, from the Amundsen Sea. It is a mountain with parasitic vents that consists of two coalesced volcanoes; Berlin proper with the wide Berlin Crater and Merrem P ... is another Antarctic volcanic mountain that produced such towers. Formation Structure References Glaciovolcanism Fumaroles {{Volcanology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Cumming
The Executive Committee Range is a mountain range consisting of five major volcanoes, which trends north-south for along the 126th meridian west, in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. The complete range was discovered by the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–41), during a flyover of the area on 15 December 1940, and named for the Executive Committee of the Expedition. Four of the five mountains are named in honor of individual members of the committee; Mount Sidley, the most imposing mountain in the range and highest volcano in Antarctica, had been discovered and named by Rear Admiral Byrd in 1934, during his privately funded Second Antarctic Expedition. The entire range was mapped in detail, by the United States Geological Survey, using various surveys and U.S. Navy trimetrogon photography performed from 1958 to 1960. Mountains The following are the five mountains, all volcanic in origin, of the Executive Committee Range, in order from south to north. Mount Wae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenolith
A xenolith ("foreign rock") is a rock fragment (country rock) that becomes enveloped in a larger rock during the latter's development and solidification. In geology, the term ''xenolith'' is almost exclusively used to describe inclusions in igneous rock entrained during magma ascent, emplacement and eruption. Xenoliths may be engulfed along the margins of a magma chamber, torn loose from the walls of an erupting lava conduit or explosive diatreme or picked up along the base of a flowing body of lava on the Earth's surface. A xenocryst is an individual foreign crystal included within an igneous body. Examples of xenocrysts are quartz crystals in a silica-deficient lava and diamonds within kimberlite diatremes. Xenoliths can be non-uniform within individual locations, even in areas which are spatially limited, e.g. rhyolite-dominated lava of Niijima volcano (Japan) contains two types of gabbroic xenoliths which are of different origin - they were formed in different temperature and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lherzolite
Lherzolite is a type of ultramafic igneous rock. It is a coarse-grained rock consisting of 40 to 90% olivine along with significant orthopyroxene and lesser amounts of calcic chromium-rich clinopyroxene. Minor minerals include chromium and aluminium spinels and garnets. Plagioclase can occur in lherzolites and other peridotites that crystallize at relatively shallow depths (20 – 30 km). At greater depth plagioclase is unstable and is replaced by spinel. At approximately 90 km depth, pyrope garnet becomes the stable aluminous phase. Garnet lherzolite is a major constituent of the Earth's upper mantle (extending to ~300 km depth). Lherzolite is known from the lower ultramafic part of ophiolite complexes (although harzburgite is more common in this setting), from alpine-type peridotite massifs, from fracture zones adjacent to mid-oceanic ridges, and as xenoliths in kimberlite pipes and alkali basalts. Partial melting of spinel lherzolite is one of the primary sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spinel
Spinel () is the magnesium/aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from the Latin word , which means ''spine'' in reference to its pointed crystals. Properties Spinel crystallizes in the isometric system; common crystal forms are octahedra, usually twinned. It has no true cleavage, but shows an octahedral parting and a conchoidal fracture. Its hardness is 8, its specific gravity is 3.5–4.1, and it is transparent to opaque with a vitreous to dull luster. It may be colorless, but is usually various shades of red, lavender, blue, green, brown, black, or yellow. Some spinels are among the most famous gemstones; among them are the Black Prince's Ruby and the "Timur ruby" in the British Crown Jewels, and the "Côte de Bretagne", formerly from the French Crown jewels. The Samarian Spinel is the largest known spinel in the world, weighing . The transparent red spinels were called spinel-rubies or b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feldspar
Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) feldspars and the ''alkali'' (potassium-sodium) feldspars. Feldspars make up about 60% of the Earth's crust, and 41% of the Earth's continental crust by weight. Feldspars crystalize from magma as both intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks and are also present in many types of metamorphic rock. Rock formed almost entirely of calcic plagioclase feldspar is known as anorthosite. Feldspars are also found in many types of sedimentary rocks. Compositions The feldspar group of minerals consists of tectosilicates, silicate minerals in which silicon ions are linked by shared oxygen ions to form a three-dimensional network. Compositions of major elements in common feldspars can be expressed in terms of three endmembers: * potassium feldspar (K-spar) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augite
Augite is a common rock-forming pyroxene mineral with formula . The crystals are monoclinic and prismatic. Augite has two prominent cleavages, meeting at angles near 90 degrees. Characteristics Augite is a solid solution in the pyroxene group. Diopside and hedenbergite are important endmembers in augite, but augite can also contain significant aluminium, titanium, and sodium and other elements. The calcium content of augite is limited by a miscibility gap between it and pigeonite and orthopyroxene: when occurring with either of these other pyroxenes, the calcium content of augite is a function of temperature and pressure, but mostly of temperature, and so can be useful in reconstructing temperature histories of rocks. With declining temperature, augite may exsolve lamellae of pigeonite and/or orthopyroxene. There is also a miscibility gap between augite and omphacite, but this gap occurs at higher temperatures. There are no industrial or economic uses for this mineral. Locatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawaiite
Hawaiite is an olivine basalt with a composition between alkali basalt and mugearite. It was first used as a name for some lavas found on the island of Hawaii. It occurs during the later stages of volcanic activity on oceanic islands such as Hawaii, which happens to be when the alkaline metals are most present. In gemology, hawaiite is a colloquial term for Hawaii-originated peridot, which is a gem-quality form of the mineral olivine. Description Hawaiite is an aphanitic (fine-grained) volcanic rock produced by rapid cooling of lava moderately poor in silica and enriched in alkali metal oxides (potassium oxide plus sodium oxide). It is often impractical to determine the mineral composition of such a fine-grained rock, and so hawaiite is defined chemically. Under the TAS classification, hawaiite is sodic trachybasalt, with a silica content close to 49 wt%, a total alkali metal oxide content close to 6%, and wt% > wt% + 2. This places hawaiite in the S1 field of the TAS dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benmoreite
Benmoreite is a silica-undersaturated volcanic rock of intermediate composition. It is a sodium-rich variety of trachyandesite and belongs to the alkalic suite of igneous rocks. Nepheline benmoreite An origin by fractionation from basanite through nepheline hawaiite to nepheline benmoreite has been demonstrated for a volcanic suite in the McMurdo Volcanic Group of late Cenozoic age in McMurdo Sound area of Antarctica. Nepheline benmoreite magmas derived from mantle sources, containing lherzolite xenoliths, display similarities to some plutonic nepheline syenite Nepheline syenite is a holocrystalline plutonic rock that consists largely of nepheline and alkali feldspar. The rocks are mostly pale colored, grey or pink, and in general appearance they are not unlike granites, but dark green varieties are al ...s. See also * References Petrology Intermediate rocks Volcanic rocks {{petrology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trachyte
Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava enriched with silica and alkali metals. It is the volcanic equivalent of syenite. Trachyte is common wherever alkali magma is erupted, including in late stages of ocean island volcanismMacDonald 1983, pp. 51-52 and in continental rift valleys, above mantle plumes,Philpotts and Ague 2009, pp. 390-394 and in areas of back-arc extension. Trachyte has also been found in Gale crater on Mars. Trachyte has been used as decorative building stone and was extensively used as dimension stone in the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Chemical composition Trachyte has a silica content of 60 to 65% and an alkali oxide content of over 7%. This gives it less SiO2 than rhyolite and more (Na2O plus K2O) than dacite. These chemical differences are consistent with the positio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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