Paternoster Valley () is a

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

extending southwestward from Stygian Cove in northern

Signy Island Signy Island is a small subantarctic island in the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica. It was named by the Norwegian whaler Petter Sørlle (1884–1933) after his wife, Signy Therese. The island is about long and wide and rises to above sea ...

. So named by

United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

(UK-APC) from the occurrence of three small

paternoster lake A paternoster lake is one of a series of glacial lakes connected by a single stream or a braided stream system. The name comes from the word ''Paternoster'', another name for the Lord's Prayer derived from the Latin words for the prayer's open ...

s, at different levels in the valley. Sombre Lake is the northernmost lake, so named by UK-APC because of the sombre setting of the lake and the proximity of Stygian Cove. Changing Lake is the central lakes. This

proglacial lake In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around the ...

was named by UK-APC because the lake slowly changes shape and size as the retaining land ice gradually retreats. Moss Lake is the southernmost lake, named by UK-APC because a luxuriant stand of

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...

covers the deeper part of the lake.

References

Valleys of Antarctica {{SouthOrkneys-geo-stub