The German Antarctic North Victoria Land Expeditions, usually referred to by the acronym GANOVEX with an appended

Roman numeral Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, ea ...

to identify a particular expedition, are a series of largely ship-based geoscientific expeditions, mainly to northern

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. I ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

, though some work has been carried out at other Antarctic locations. The expeditions are sponsored by the ''Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe'' (BGR – the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources) in conjunction and cooperation with government agencies and academic institutions in Germany and elsewhere. Originally work focussed on reconstructing the Gondwanan breakup and relationships between Antarctica, Australia and the micro-continents of Tasmania and New Zealand. Subsequent research includes the geodynamics of the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

, 500 million year old, Ross Orogen on the edge of the Paleopacific Ocean, and the genesis of the Cenozoic continental

Ross Sea The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land and within the Ross Embayment, and is the southernmost sea on Earth. It derives its name from the British explorer James Clark Ross who ...

Rift and the uplift of its western flank in the area of the

Transantarctic Mountains The Transantarctic Mountains (abbreviated TAM) comprise a mountain range of uplifted (primarily sedimentary) rock in Antarctica which extend, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare in northern Victoria Land to Coats Land. ...

Expeditions

The first expedition (GANOVEX I) took place in 1979–1980. The second (GANOVEX II) took place in 1981–1982 but was aborted following the sinking of its supply ship ''Gotland II''. Subsequent expeditions were: * III – 1982–1983 – North Victoria Land * IV – 1984–1985 – North Victoria Land * V – 1988–1989 – North Victoria Land, Oates Coast * VI – 1990–1991 – North Victoria Land * VII – 1992–1993 – Victoria Land, Oates Coast, Marie Byrd Land * VIII – 1999–2000 – Victoria Land, Oates Coast, George V Land * IX – 2005–2006 – North Victoria Land * X – 2009–2010 – North Victoria Land * XI – 2015–2016 – North Victoria Land

References

Antarctic expeditions Germany and the Antarctic Victoria Land Geology of Antarctica Geological surveys {{VictoriaLand-geo-stub