Antarctic geomorphological and glaciological 1 : 250 000 map series: Mount Murchison quadrangle, northern Victoria Land. Explanatory notes

Abstract

Geomorphological and glaciological features are represented on a georeferenced satellite image mosaic of the Mount Murchison quadrangle, northern Victoria Land, Antarctica (73-748 S, 162-166830 0 E), at a scale of 1 : 250 000. Landforms and deposits of glacial and periglacial environments, forms related to mass wasting, wind action, weathering and geological structures are identified and mapped. The chronological sequence of landforms and deposits, morphography and lithology is also indicated. Glacier velocities (up to 180 m a -1 ) and ice-front fluctuations (1964-99) were determined by analysis of aerial photography and satellite imagery. Airborne radar surveys reveal that the greatest ice thickness (about 1500 m) is located in the grounding zone of Aviator Glacier. Up to 1000 m of ice bury the subglacial relief of Deception Plateau, Hercules Névé and the Deep Freeze Range. Snow accumulation rates (average = 170 kg m -2 a -1 ) exhibit an overall negative correlation with altitude and distance from the coast. The relationships among relict erosional landforms and volcanic activity provide chronological constraints for the palaeogeographic evolution of this sector of the Transantarctic Mountains.

Dating late Cenozoic erosional surfaces in Victoria Land, Antarctica, with cosmogenic neon in pyroxenes

“…Columnar jointing is a common feature along the cliffs where dolerites and basalts crop out. The landforms of glacial origin in northern Victoria Land are described in detail in Denton et al (1986), Orombelli (1989), Orombelli et al (1991), and Baroni et al (2005c). First absolute datings have been accomplished by Armienti & Baroni (1999) who provided K -Ar and Rb -Sr ages of igneous rocks from different landscape elements.…”

“…At the valley heads, it reaches down to the present-day ice level. Orombelli et al (1991) and Baroni et al (2005aBaroni et al ( , 2005bBaroni et al ( , 2005c give a detailed description of the distribution of the trimline between the Mesa Range and David Glacier. It is assumed that the development of the alpine topography began with the onset of glaciation on a previously sculpted fluvial valley network through undercutting of rock walls after 34 Ma BP (Sugden & Denton 2004, Jamieson et al 2005, Baroni et al 2005d, and that the alpine topography is the oldest landscape element in Victoria Land.…”

“…Landscape analysis was conducted over an area extending more than 300 km along the coastal margin and several tens of km into the interior, enabling us to distinguish several relict geomorphologic features, dominated by an alpine topography that is widespread in entire Victoria Land. Glacial erosional trimlines were identified and their elevations mapped using topographic maps and altimeter measurements, corrected by cross-checking points of known elevation (Baroni et al 2005a(Baroni et al , 2005b(Baroni et al , 2005c. The estimated trimline elevations have an uncertainty of about 50 m.…”

Interpreting last glacial to Holocene dust changes at Talos Dome (East Antarctica): implications for atmospheric variations from regional to hemispheric scales

“…In the Talos Dome regional setting, the deglaciation (i.e. thinning of the grounded Ross Ice Sheet and retreat of its grounding line) started about 14 kyr BP at the Ross Ice Sheet margin, became widespread about 12 kyr BP, and was completed by about 8 kyr BP at Terra Nova Bay (Baroni and Hall, 2004;Baroni et al, 2005). Afterwards, changes in the extension of the floating Ross Ice Shelf and sea ice continued throughout the Holocene (Hall, 2009).…”

Regionalization of the Atmospheric Dust Cycle on the Periphery of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet Since the Last Glacial Maximum

“…Ferrar dolerite and GHI granite are the most common rocks constituting the nunataks of the area near TD (Baroni et al, 2004;Faure & Mensing, 2010;Pour et al, 2018). The doleritic outcrops of Victoria Land usually culminate with tabular ice-free plateaus, consisting of high-altitude (2,500-3,000 m) relict flat structural surfaces (Baroni et al, 2004). Geomorphology could help in understanding this point, as it can be seen in Figures 1c and 1d.…”