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Transantarctic Mountains
The Transantarctic Mountains (abbreviated TAM) comprise a mountain range of uplifted (primarily sedimentary rock, sedimentary) rock in Antarctica which extend, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare in northern Victoria Land to Coats Land. These mountains divide East Antarctica and West Antarctica. They include a number of separately named mountain groups, which are often again subdivided into smaller ranges. The range was first sighted by James Clark Ross in 1841 at what was later named the Ross Ice Shelf in his honour. It was first crossed during the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904. Geography The mountain range stretches between the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea, the entire width of Antarctica, hence the name. With a total length of about , the Transantarctic Mountains are one of the longest mountain ranges on Earth. The Antarctandes are even longer, having in common with the Transantarctic Mountains the ranges from Cape Adare to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Land
Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after Queen Victoria. The rocky promontory of Minna Bluff is often regarded as the southernmost point of Victoria Land, and separates the Scott Coast to the north from the Hillary Coast of the Ross Dependency to the south. The region includes ranges of the Transantarctic Mountains and the McMurdo Dry Valleys (the highest point being Mount Abbott in the Northern Foothills), and the flatlands known as the Labyrinth. The Mount Melbourne is an active volcano in Victoria Land. Early explorers of Victoria Land include James Clark Ross and Douglas Mawson. In 1979, scientists discovered a group of 309 meteorites in Antarctica, some of which were found near the Allan Hills in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitmore Mountains
The Whitmore Mountains () are an isolated mountain range of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in the Marie Byrd Land region of West Antarctica. They consist of three mountains and a cluster of nunataks extending over 15 miles. The group was visited and surveyed on January 2, 1959, by William H. Chapman, cartographer with the Horlick Mountains Traverse Party (1958–59). The mountains were named by Chapman for George D. Whitmore, Chief Topographic Engineer of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), who was a member of the Working Group on Cartography of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. Geological features Linck Nunataks Linck Nunataks () is a group of four small, ice-covered nunataks at the southeast end of the Whitmore Mountains. Three of the nunataks are together and aligned while the fourth lies 2.5 miles distant. They were visited and surveyed on January 2, 1959, by the Horlick Mountains Traverse Party. William H. Chapman, party surveyor, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Falcon Scott
Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nova'' expedition of 1910–1913. On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Antarctic Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. On the second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, less than five weeks after Amundsen's South Pole expedition. A planned meeting with supporting dog teams from the base camp failed, despite Scott's written instructions, and at a distance of 162 miles (261 km) from their base camp at Hut Point and approximately 12.5 miles (20 km) from the next depot, Scott and his companions died. When Scott and his party's bodies were discovered, they had in their possession the first Antarctic fossils ever discov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Armitage
Albert Borlase Armitage (2 July 1864 – 31 October 1943) was a Scottish polar explorer and officer in the Merchant Navy. Early life Armitage was born in Balquhidder, near Loch Lubnaig in Perthshire on 2 July 1864. He was one of eight children to Samuel Harris Tatham Armitage, a Yorkshire doctor, and Alice (Lees) Armitage. In 1878 Armitage enlisted as a cadet aboard the Royal Navy's training ship, , which was moored at the time in the River Thames near Greenhithe. At the conclusion of basic training he attempted to resign from the Navy and seek a position with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), but was prevented from doing so by his father. Instead, Armitage was signed on as an apprentice aboard the former Indian Navy frigate '' Punjaub'', now owned by the East India Company. He sailed with ''Punjaub'' to Calcutta, where he transferred to another Company vessel, the ''Lucknow,'' as Third Mate. After seven years as a Company sailor, Armitage ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipodally on the opposite side of Earth from the North Pole, at a distance of 12,430 miles (20,004 km) in all directions. Situated on the continent of Antarctica, it is the site of the United States Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, which was established in 1956 and has been permanently staffed since that year. The Geographic South Pole is distinct from the South Magnetic Pole, the position of which is defined based on Earth's magnetic field. The South Pole is at the centre of the Southern Hemisphere. Geography For most purposes, the Geographic South Pole is defined as the southern point of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface (the other being the Geographic North Pole). However, Earth's axis of rotat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gondwana
Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages of break-up, involving the separation of Antarctica from South America (forming the Drake Passage) and Australia, occurred during the Paleogene. Gondwana was not considered a supercontinent by the earliest definition, since the landmasses of Baltica, Laurentia, and Siberia were separated from it. To differentiate it from the Indian region of the same name (see ), it is also commonly called Gondwanaland. Gondwana was formed by the accretion of several cratons. Eventually, Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Palaeozoic Era, covering an area of about , about one-fifth of the Earth's surface. During the Carboniferous Period, it merged with Laurasia to form a larger supercontinent called Pangaea. Gondwana (and Pan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Beech
''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and New Caledonia). The species are ecological dominants in many temperate forests in these regions. Some species are reportedly naturalised in Germany and Great Britain. The genus has a rich fossil record of leaves, cupules, and pollen, with fossils extending into the late Cretaceous period and occurring in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and South America. Description The leaves are toothed or entire, evergreen or deciduous. The fruit is a small, flattened or triangular nut, borne in cupules containing one to seven nuts. Reproduction Many individual trees are extremely old, and at one time, some populations were thought to be unable to reproduce in present-day conditions where they were growing, except by suckering (clonal repr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wollemi Pine
''Wollemia'' is a genus of coniferous trees in the family Araucariaceae. It was known only through fossil records until 1994, when the Australian species ''Wollemia nobilis'' was discovered in a temperate rainforest wilderness area of the Wollemi National Park in New South Wales. It was growing in a remote series of narrow, steep-sided, sandstone gorges north-west of Sydney. The genus is named after the National Park. In both botanical and popular literature, the tree has been almost universally referred to as the Wollemi pine (), although it is not a true pine (genus ''Pinus''), nor a member of the pine family (Pinaceae), but is related to ''Agathis'' and ''Araucaria'' in the family Araucariaceae. The Wollemi pine is classified as critically endangered (CR) on the IUCN's Red List, and is legally protected in Australia. After it was discovered that the trees could be successfully cloned, new trees were potted up in the Botanic Gardens of Sydney and Mount Annan. A Recovery Plan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algae
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular microalgae, such as ''Chlorella,'' ''Prototheca'' and the diatoms, to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelp, a large brown alga which may grow up to in length. Most are aquatic and autotrophic (they generate food internally) and lack many of the distinct cell and tissue types, such as stomata, xylem and phloem that are found in land plants. The largest and most complex marine algae are called seaweeds, while the most complex freshwater forms are the ''Charophyta'', a division of green algae which includes, for example, ''Spirogyra'' and stoneworts. No definition of algae is generally accepted. One definition is that algae "have chlorophyll ''a'' as their primary photosynthetic pigment and lack a sterile covering of cells around thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.Introduction to Lichens – An Alliance between Kingdoms . University of California Museum of Paleontology. Lichens have properties different from those of their component organisms. They come in many colors, sizes, and forms and are sometimes plant-like, but are not s. They may have tiny, leafless branches (); flat leaf-like structures ( |
Queen Alexandra Range
The Queen Alexandra Range is a major mountain range of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in the Ross Dependency region of Antarctica. It is about long, bordering the entire western side of Beardmore Glacier from the Polar Plateau to the Ross Ice Shelf. Alternate names for this range include Alexandra Mountains, Alexandra Range and Königin Alexandra Gebirge. The highest peak of the range is Mount Kirkpatrick at . Other peaks in the range include Mount Dickerson (4,120 m). Discovery This mountain range was discovered on the journey toward the South Pole by the British Antarctic Expedition, and was named by Ernest Shackleton for Queen consort Alexandra of the United Kingdom. Shackleton and his men, and a later expedition headed by Robert Falcon Scott, both collected rock samples from the range that contained fossils. The discovery that multicellular life forms had lived so close to the South Pole was an additional piece of evidence that accompanied the publicatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McMurdo Dry Valleys
The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of largely snow-free valleys in Antarctica, located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound. The Dry Valleys experience extremely low humidity and surrounding mountains prevent the flow of ice from nearby glaciers. The rocks here are granites and gneisses, and glacial tills dot this bedrock landscape, with loose gravel covering the ground. It is one of the driest places on Earth and has not seen rain for nearly two million years. The region is one of the world's most extreme deserts, and includes many features including Lake Vida, a saline lake, and the Onyx River, a meltwater stream and Antarctica's longest river. Although no living organisms have been found in the permafrost here, endolithic photosynthetic bacteria have been found living in the relatively moist interior of rocks, and anaerobic bacteria, with a metabolism based on iron and sulfur, live under the Taylor Glacier. The valleys are located within the McMurdo Valleys Antarc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
