Lake Joyce () is a lake which lies along the northern side of

Taylor Glacier __NOTOC__ The Taylor Glacier is an Antarctic glacier about long, flowing from the plateau of Victoria Land into the western end of Taylor Valley, north of the Kukri Hills, south of the Asgard Range. The middle part of the glacier is bounded on ...

Pearse Valley Pearse Valley () is an ice-free valley long, lying immediately west of Catspaw Glacier, at the south side of the Asgard Range in Victoria Land. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN or US-AC ...

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 ...

, Antarctica. It is ) long, deep and is covered by of very clear ice. The lake was studied by the New Zealand

Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition The Antarctic Research Centre (ARC) is part of the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington. Its mission is to research "Antarctic climate history and processes, and their influence on the global clima ...

(1963–64) which named it after

Ernest Joyce Ernest Edward Mills Joyce AM ( – 2 May 1940) was a Royal Naval seaman and explorer who participated in four Antarctic expeditions during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, in the early 20th century. He served under both Robert Falcon ...

, a member of earlier British expeditions to the area led by Scott (1901–04) and Shackleton (1907–09). The lake bottom is covered by thick

microbial mat A microbial mat is a multi-layered sheet of microorganisms, mainly bacteria and archaea, or bacteria alone. Microbial mats grow at interfaces between different types of material, mostly on submerged or moist surfaces, but a few survive in deserts. ...

s, from which rise

microbialite Microbialite is a benthic sedimentary deposit made of carbonate mud (particle diameter < 5 μm) that is formed with the mediation of microbes. The constituent carbonate mud is a type of

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate g ...

structures.

References

Lakes of Victoria Land McMurdo Dry Valleys {{McMurdoDryValleys-geo-stub