Central Transantarctic Mountains

The basement rocks of the central Transantarctic Mountains are exposed primarily along the coast, except for the Geologist and the Miller Ranges which are located at the edge of the polar plateau more than 80 km inland of the coast The basement rocks along the coast are unconfonnably overlain by the sedimentary rocks of the Beacon Supergroup which were intruded 

The highest peaks in the area consist of Beacon Sandstone and Ferrar Dolerite, capped in a few cases by Kirkpatrick Basalt as, for example, in the Queen Alexandra Range which contains Mt. Kirlqtatrick (4,530 m). Ml Elizabeth (4,480 m), Mt. MackeUar (4,297 m), ML FaUa (3,825 m), and Tempest Peak (3,412 m). Other noteworthy peaks are Mt. Markham (4,351 m),Mt. Miller (4,160 m), Mt. Wexler (4,024 m), Mt. Odishaw (3,965 m), and Ml Macdonald (3,930 m). Mt. Kirkpatrick is the fourth highest mountain in Antarctica exceeded only by the Vinson Massif (5,140 m), Mt. Tyree (4,965 m), and Mt. Shinn (4,801 m) all of which are located in the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains in West Antarctica. 

Faure and T.M. Mensing, The Transantarctic Mountains Rocks, Ice, Meteorites and Water, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9390-5 5, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 

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Figure 12 Geochemical data for the Siesta paleosol of Pliocene age (3 Ma) from the Meyer Desert Formation at Oliver Bluffs, central Transantarctic Mountains (Retallack et al, 2001)...

Turner MD, Splettstoesser JF (eds) (1982) Geology of the central Transantarctic Mountains. Antarctic Research Series, vol. 36. American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC... 

Felder RP, Faure G (1980) Rubidium-strontium age determinations of part of the basement complex of the Brown Hills, central Transantarctic Mountains. Antarctic J US 15(5) 16-17... 

Grikurov GE (1982) Structure of Antarctica and outline of its evolution. In Craddock C (ed) Antarctic geoscience. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI, pp 791-804 Grindley GW (1971) Polyphase deformation of the Piecambrian Nimrod Group, central Transantarctic Mountains. In Adie RJ(ed)Antmcticgeologyandgeophysics,Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, Norway... 

Fig. 5.1 The central Transantarctic Mountains include the area between the Nimrod and Beardmore Glaciers. The Byrd Glacier in the north and the Shackleton Glacier in the south are off this map. The basement rocks of this area crop out along the coast and are overlain by sandstones of the Beacon Supergroup farther inland. The only exceptions are the Miller and Geologist Ranges at the head of the Nimrod Glacier (Fig. 5.2) where the Nimrod Group is exposed (Adapted from Gunner 1976...

Table 5.1 Stratigraphy of the basement rocks of the central Transantarctic Mountains (Grindley and Laird 1969 McGregor and Wade 1969 Stumpl981,1982 ...

Table 5.2 Summary of U-Pb SHRIMP dates of cores and overgrowths of zircon grains in a sample of gneiss of the Nimrod Group in the MiUer Range of the central Transantarctic Mountains (Goodge and Fanning 1999)...

In the northern part of the central Transantarctic Mountains between the Byrd and Nimrod Glaciers, Laird (1963), Skinner (1964, 1965), and Grindley and Laird (1969) described the stratigraphy of the Byrd Group in terms of the formations listed in Table 5.1 ... 

The results of these two studies are in excellent agreement and support three important conclusions about the petrogenesis of the Hope Granite in the central Transantarctic Mountains ... 

The Shackleton Glacier (84°35 S, 176°20 W) marks the southern limit of the central Transantarctic Mountains as defined in Fig. 3.1. It is also the northern limit of the Queen Maud Mountains which extend along the strike of the Transantarctic Mountains to the Reedy Glacier and to the Wisconsin Range of the Horlick Mountains located at about 86°S and 125°W. 

The insights gained by these specialized studies of the central Transantarctic Mountains must be examined critically to determine whether the master hypothesis concerning the formation of the Ross orogen presented by Stump (1995) is still valid and still explains satisfactorily the deposition of detrital sediment along a passive rift margin which later evolved into an active subduction zone that caused the deformation and regional metamorphism of the rocks that now form the basement complex of the central Transantarctic Mountains. 

Bennett VC, Fanning CM (1993) A glimpse of the cryptic Gondwana shield Archean and Proterozoic ages from the central Transantarctic Mountains. Abstract, Geol Soc Amer. Abstracts with Programs 25(5) 49... 

Borg SG, Goodge JW, DePaolo DJ, Mattinson JM (1986) Field studies of granites and metamorphic rocks Central Transantarctic Mountains. Antarctic J US 21(5) 43-45... 

Borg SG, DePaolo DJ, Smith BM (1990) Isotopic structure and tectonics of the central Transantarctic Mountains. J Geophys Res 95 6647-6667... 

Goodge JW, Hansen VL, Peacock SM, Smith BK (1990) Metamorphic rocks in the Geologist and Miller ranges, Nimrod Glacier area, central Transantarctic Mountains. Antarctic J US 25(5) 35-36... 

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