Patriot Hills
| Patriot Hills | ||
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| location | Ellsworthland , West Antarctica | |
| part of | Heritage Range , Ellsworth Mountains | |
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| Coordinates | 80 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ S , 81 ° 25 ′ 0 ″ W | |
 Map of the region |
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The Patriot Hills are a range of hills in Ellsworthland , in western Antarctica . The approximately five miles (eight kilometers) long rocky hill formation is located about 5 kilometers east of the Independence Hills and belongs to the Heritage Range , a vast mountain region.
To the north of the Patriot Hills (in their slipstream) is an approximately 2 × 8 kilometer blue ice field , a snow-free area that can be used as a landing pad for small aircraft.
history
The Patriot Hills were mapped by the United States Geological Survey between 1961 and 1966 through on-site explorations and aerial photographs by the US Navy . The formation was named in 1964 by the American Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names .
In 1987 the company Aventure Network International established the Patriot Hills Base Camp here . The tent camp, which is only used in the summer months, is the only privately operated camp on the Antarctic continent.
During the winter of 1998, a team of scientists from Carnegie Mellon University , NASA Ames Research Center, and the University of Pittsburgh set up camp near the Patriot Hills for a few weeks. Here they tested the Nomad robot , which was built to autonomously examine and identify stones and meteorites in polar regions. Since it is believed that there were no meteorite impacts in this region, the researchers scattered meteorites they had carried with them for testing.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Patriot Hills ( English ) In: Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey . Retrieved July 16, 2010.
- ↑ National Science Foundation: INITIAL ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION DEVELOPMENT OF BLUE-ICE AND COMPACTED-SNOW RUNWAYS IN SUPPORT OF THE US ANTARCTIC PROGRAM . April 9, 1993.
- ↑ Adventure Network International - Patriot Hills ( Memento June 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Robotic Antarctic Meteorite Search - Expedition 1998