- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Antarctica Geology
I found a place called vinson massif, and is the highest peak there! not 13 words though
With crystalline air and ancient ice, Antarctica is Earth’s harshest land.
Most visitors to Antarctica glimpse only fragments of the actual continent. Antarctica is 98% covered with ice and it is sometimes difficult to remember that there is rock lying below the tons of ancient frozen water.
However, scientists have managed to study the continent and have drawn some interesting observations and conclusions about this land covered with ice.
Antarctica is the world’s fifth largest continent, with an area of 5.9 million square miles. It is almost twice the size of Australia or Europe and three-quarters the size of South America. The continent is roughly shaped like a comma with its tail pointing towards South America. The comma tail and its root are generally referred to as West Antarctica and the main body of the comma is usually called East Antarctica. Geologists have determined that the underlying rocks and sediment of East Antarctica are a stable platform of sedimentary rocks, heavily metamorphosed and over-laid with younger sediments. The western side of the continent is a complex of folded and metamorphosed sediments, mostly of volcanic origin. Visitors can most clearly see this structure in the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula. Interestingly, East and West Antarctica evolved in different ways and only came together relatively recently in geological terms. The mountains of the Trans-Antarctic Range separate the two sides of the continent.
The rocks of East Antarctica are among the oldest found on the planet. Many of the rocks found here are at least 3 billion years old. The oldest rock discovered on Earth came from Enderby Land in 1986 and is estimated to be 3.86 billion years old. In contrast, the rocks on Western Antarctica are relatively new: 700 million years old on average.
The continent fits within the polar circle, which is a circular line drawn 23 degrees 27’ from the South Geological Pole. (A distance of 1618 miles). The polar circle cuts through the Antarctic Peninsula, leaving the northern end of the peninsula and the South Shetland Islands north of the polar circle.
Antarctica contains some very large mountains. Interestingly, much of the mass of these mountains is actually buried beneath the massive ice accumulations. The highest mountain on the continent is Vinson Massif with a peak of 16,859 feet. This mountain is part of a cluster of mountains in the Eternity Range on the Western side of Antarctica.
Active volcanoes are found in three locations on Antarctica: the western Ross Sea, Western Antarctica and along the Antarctic Peninsula. These are truly active volcanoes and the probability that a major eruption could occur at any time in Antarctica is high. In the Ross Sea region, much of the activity occurs along the front of the Trans-Antarctic Range, although a number of small volcanic vents have been detected beneath the sea itself. High in the Transantarctic Mountains of northern Victoria Land are the Pleidas, a set of very young volcanic domes which first erupted about 1000 years ago. Mt. Melbourne is near Terra Nova Bay and has steaming ground at its summit and an ash layer that indicates that it erupted less than 200 years ago.
In Marie Byrd Land on West Antarctica, Mt. Berlin is considered an active volcano. Aerial studies seem to indicate depressions in the nearby ice, which might indicate an ongoing eruption beneath the ice of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from this volcano. In the Peninsula region, Deception Island is a volcanic island complete
Terra nova bay also means something! ill check
Snow hog goes here maybe!
[Edited on 7/8/2004 8:16:13 AM]