Executive Committee Range
| Executive Committee Range | ||
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 Satellite image of the Executive Committee Range ( from top to bottom: Whitney Peak, Mount Hampton, Mount Cumming, Mount Hartigan, Mount Sidley, Mount Waesche) |
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| Highest peak | Mount Sidley ( 4181 m ) | |
| location | Marie Byrd Land , West Antarctica | |
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| Coordinates | 76 ° 50 ′ S , 126 ° 0 ′ W | |
The Executive Committee Range is a mountain range in Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica . It essentially consists of five large volcanoes ( Mount Sidley , Mount Waesche , Mount Hampton , Mount Cumming and Mount Hartigan with several individually named mountain peaks) and Whitney Peak, immediately northwest of Mount Hampton . They are distributed over a distance of 80 km along the 126th degree of longitude.
The volcanic activity that is responsible for the formation of the mountain range continues in a north-south direction. Accordingly, the northernmost peak, Whitney Peak, is 13.7 million years old, while the southernmost volcano, Mount Waesche, was only formed during the last million years. New investigations indicate persistent igneous activity in the subsurface south of Mount Waesche, which suggests that volcanism in this region has by no means been extinguished.
The mountains were discovered during an overflight on December 15, 1940 during the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–1941). It is named after the Executive Committee of the United States Antarctic Service . As early as 1934, the American polar explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd discovered Mount Sidley as a single mountain. The United States Geological Survey mapped the entire mountain range between 1958 and 1960 using its own surveys and Trimetrogon aerial photographs by the United States Navy .
Web links
- Executive Committee Range in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey (English)
- Executive Committee Range on geographic.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Amanda C. Lough et al .: Seismic detection of an active subglacial magmatic complex in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica . In: Nature Geoscience . tape 6 , November 17, 2013, p. 1031–1035 , doi : 10.1038 / ngeo1992 (English, freely available online from Washington University in St. Louis [PDF; 952 kB ]).
- ^ Antarctica: Volcanic activity under the ice. In: scinexx . MMCD NEW MEDIA GmbH, November 18, 2013, accessed on January 29, 2017 .