Viking 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 ...

lying on the east side of

Mars Glacier Mars Glacier is a glacier in the southeastern corner of Alexander Island, Antarctica, long and wide, flowing south into the George VI Ice Shelf. The glacier lies between Two Step Cliffs and Phobos Ridge. Mars Glacier was first sighted from the ...

containing a braided stream which feeds into

Secret Lake Secret Lake is a meltwater lake west of Ares Cliff, near the east coast of Alexander Island in Antarctica. Description The lake is situated in a north-west facing glacial cirque and is fed from an area of stagnant ice. It lies above the eas ...

, situated in the southeast corner of Alexander Island,

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 contine ...

. This area was the prime research site of the 1992-93 Mars Glacier field party led by D. D. Wynn-Williams. The feature was named by the

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 ...

in 1993 in association with nearby Mars Glacier. The name "Viking" stems from the

Viking Lander The ''Viking'' program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, ''Viking 1'' and ''Viking 2'', which landed on Mars in 1976. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars f ...

project of NASA which first searched for life on Mars in 1976.

See also