Wilkes Land

On the return trip to Erance, d Urville was surprised to encounter an American warship that was part of a fleet commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1798-1877) who was leading the United States Exploring Expedition from 1838 to 1842 to the southern ocean. On December 26 of 1839 four ships in Wilkes fleet headed south toward the coast of Antarctica. Wilkes in Fig. 1.4 sailed along the coast of East Antarctica including the part that is now called Wilkes Land (69°00 S, 120°00 E). Only two of the six ships that started this voyage returned to New York in August of 1842. 

Mountains of East Antarctica, in the Ellsworth Mountains of West Antarctica, and in the extinct volcanoes of Marie Byrd Land. In addition, small mountain ranges project through the East Antarctic ice sheet in Queen (or Dronning) Maud Land, in Enderby Land, in Mac. Robertson Land, and in a few places in Wilkes Land (e.g., Gaussberg, Section 1.3.3). 

The present elevation of the bedrock surface of some parts of East and West Antarctica is actually below sea level. Eor example, two large subglacial basins in Wilkes Land of East Antarctica lie below sea level. In addition, the surface of subglacial Lake Vostok at 78°28 S and 106°48 E is below sea level by about 200-300 m. The bedrock surface of most of West Antarctica is also below sea level partly because of the mass of the overlying ice sheet (Drewry et al. 1983 Bentley and Robertson 1982 Bentley et al. 1982). Consequently, the incursion of seawater into the subglacial basins could result in the hreak-np of the West Antarctic ice sheet and of the ice in the Wilkes basin of East Antarctica. 

Although large meteorites have certainly impacted in Antarctica, only one such crater has been tentatively identified under the ice at about 71°30 S, 140°00 E in Wilkes Land south of the Adelie coast. Another more speculative meteorite impact crater may exist at Butcher Ridge (79°12 S, 155°48 E) in the Cook Mountains of southern Victoria Land. 

The presence of a meteorite impact crater at 71.5°S and 140°E in Wilkes Land was first suggested by Schmidt (1962) as a potential source of tektites in Australia called australites based on the presence of a negative gravity anomaly that was recorded by the Victoria Land Traverse-2 in 1958/59. The presence of a meteorite impact crater in WUkes Land was supported by Weihaupt (1961,1976) on the basis of a seismic survey which indicated that the elevation of the bedrock surface at the site of the hypothetical crater is 415... 

Fig. 18.7 The Wilkes Land subgladal meteorite-impact crater was identified on the basis of gravity data obtained by the GRACE sateUite (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment). The location of the crater is indicated by a positive free-air gravity anomaly which occurs above a subglacial basin at 70°S and 120°E outlined by the solid white lines which delineate the rim of the crater. The dashed lines outline the hypothetical outer rings of this multi-ring basin. The coincidence of a positive gravity anomaly over a deep...

Shoemaker EM, Kieffer SW (1974) Guidebook to the geology of Meteor Crater, Arizona. Pub. 17. Center for Meteorite Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ Steed RHN, Drewry DJ (1982) Radio-echo sounging investigations of Wilkes Land, Antarctica. In Craddock C (ed) Antarctic geoscience. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI... 

Weihaupt JG (1976) The Wilkes Land anomaly Evidence for a possible hypervelocity impact crater. J Geophys Res... 

Note Sampling depths are in feet below the land surface. Letters after depths denote the different shafts L is Loree no. 2 St is Storrs no. 1 and So is South Wilkes-Barre no. 5,... 

Another utility vehicle that reached international status was the British-designed Land Rover. Maurice Wilks was the chief designer at Rover at the end of World War II. He was using an ex-army Jeep on his estate and would need a replacement when the car wore out. He had several Jeeps taken apart at the Rover factory and then built a four-wheel-drive vehicle for the British market. Since there still were restrictions on steel, except for the export market, the body of the Land Rover was made of aluminium alloy. The prototype was built on a Jeep chassis in 1947 and the final model appeared in 1948. It was a success with British farmers and gradually moved into the general consumer market. 

The claim to Adelie Land which Dumont d Urville had discovered was not recognized until 1926 because it was not clear whether d Urville or Wilkes had actually seen it first. Finally, on January 20 of 1950, a group of scientists of the French Polar Expedition landed on the Adelie coast to set up a base which was named Dumont d Urville in honor of the famous navigator and explorer (Stonehouse 2002). 

A very different hypothesis was advanced by Stem and ten Brink (1989) who related the uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains to the depression of the subglacial Wilkes Basin west of the mountains and of the Victoria Land Basin located east of the mountains in the Ross Embayment. The Wilkes Basin is located 400-500 km west of the Transantarctic Mountains and reaches a depth of 1 km below sea level. The Victoria-Land Basin off the coast of Victoria Land contains at least 4-5 km of sediment of Cenozoic age. Stern and ten Brink (1989, p. 10, 315) stated ... 

The visualization of native protein structure and the structure of engineered proteins by 3-dimensional computer graphics is widely used in P.e. (see e.g. van Aalten et al.). [D. A. Oxender C. F. Fox (editors) Protein Engineering. Tutorials in Molecular and Cell Biology, AlanR.Liss, Inc., New York, 1987 H.M. Wilks et al. Biochemistry 29 (1990) 8587-8691 G. Winter C.Milstein Nature 349 (1991) 293 D.M.F. van Aalten et al. Protein Engineering 8 (1995) 1129-1135 J. L. Cle-land CS.Craik (eds.) Protein Engineering, Principles and Practice Wiley-Liss (A John Wiley Sons, Inc, Publication) New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto, Singapore, 1996 (ISBN 0-471-10354-3)]... 

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