The Thiel Mountains are an isolated, mainly snow-capped

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

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. ...

System, located in the

Ellsworth Land Ellsworth Land is a portion of the Antarctic continent bounded on the west by Marie Byrd Land, on the north by Bellingshausen Sea, on the northeast by the base of Antarctic Peninsula, and on the east by the western margin of the Filchner–Ronne ...

region of

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 ...

. The mountain range is long, and is located roughly between the

Horlick Mountains The Horlick Mountains are a mountain range in the Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica. Some sources indicate that the designation includes the Ohio Range, the Long Hills, and all of the Wisconsin Range, while others suggest that it includes o ...

and the

Pensacola Mountains The Pensacola Mountains are a large group of mountain ranges of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in the Queen Elizabeth Land region of Antarctica. Geography They extend 450 km (280 mi) in a NE-SW direction. Subranges of th ...

, and extends from Moulton Escarpment on the west to Nolan Pillar on the east. Major components include Ford Massif (2,810 m), Bermel Escarpment and a group of eastern peaks near Nolan Pillar. The mountains were observed and first positioned by the USARP Horlick Mountains Traverse Party, 1958–59. The mountains were surveyed by the USGS Thiel Mountains parties of 1960-61 and 1961–62. The Thiel Mountains were named by

US-ACAN The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN or US-ACAN) is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending commemorative names for features in Antarctica. History The committee was established ...

after Dr. Edward C. Thiel, traverse seismologist at

Ellsworth Station Ellsworth Scientific Station ( es, Estación Científica Ellsworth, or simply ''Estación Ellsworth'' or ''Base Ellsworth'') was a permanent, all year-round originally American, then Argentine Antarctic scientific research station named after Ame ...

and the

in 1957. In December 1959, he made airlifted geophysical observations along the

88th meridian west The meridian 88° west of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, North America, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, Central America, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to ...

, including work near these mountains. Thiel perished with four others on November 9, 1961, in the crash of a

P2V Neptune The Lockheed P-2 Neptune (designated P2V by the United States Navy prior to September 1962) is a maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. It was developed for the US Navy by Lockheed to replace the Lockheed PV-1 Ventura and P ...

aircraft soon after take-off from

Wilkes Station Wilkes Station was an Antarctic research station established 29 January 1957 by the United States as one of seven U.S. stations established for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) program in Antarctica. It was taken over by Australia o ...

. An aircraft fuel cache () is located near the Thiel Mountains for planes traveling between the

Union Glacier Camp The Union Glacier Camp is the only private seasonally occupied camp site located in Ellsworth Land in Antarctica. The camp is located in the Heritage Range, below the Ellsworth Mountains, on Union Glacier, that gives the camp its name. Locatio ...

and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station.South Pole Flights
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Gallery

Image:Thiel_Mountains_far.jpg, Distant aerial view of the Thiel Mountains

References

{{Authority control Mountain ranges of Ellsworth Land Transantarctic Mountains

Gallery

See also

References