Major feature group in the Transantarctic Mountains
The Queen Maud Mountains () are a major group of mountains, ranges and subordinate features of the Transantarctic Mountains, lying between the Beardmore and Reedy Glaciers and including the area from the head of the Ross Ice Shelf to the Antarctic Plateau in Antarctica. Captain Roald Amundsen and his South Pole party ascended Axel Heiberg Glacier near the central part of this group in November 1911, naming these mountains for the Norwegian queen Maud of Wales.
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Exploration and naming.
Elevations bordering the Beardmore Glacier, at the western extremity of these mountains, were observed by the British expeditions led by Ernest Shackleton (1907–09) and Robert Falcon Scott (1910-13), but the mountains as a whole were mapped by several American expeditions led by Richard Evelyn Byrd (1930s and 1940s), and United States Antarctic Program (USARP) and New Zealand Antarctic Research Program (NZARP) expeditions from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Appearance.
The "Sailing Directions for Antarctica" (1960) describes the Queen Maud Range as follows: "From the Beardmore Glacier the horst trends east-southeastward an undetermined distance. The Prince Olaf Mountains stretch from the Beardmore Glacier to the Liv Glacier. Near a large glacier trends southward. Eastward of 175°E. the escarpment is fronted for about 50 miles by high gneissic foothills which are fronted by an expansive piedmont inundating the lower heights. In about the Shackleton Glacier (Wade Glacier), a vast straight-walled glacier about 12 miles wide, extends southward to the polar plateau.
"At this point the scarp appears broken by a transverse fault which displaces the horst northward to Mount Wade (Mount Bush), a beacon sandstone massif rising to at least 14,000 feet above sea level, dominating the eastern flank of this remarkable valley glacier.
Eastward of Mount Wade stand the Fisher Mountains, which form the western flank of the Liv Glacier. Bush Mountains, lying just eastward of the mouth of Shackleton Glacier, are a group of ragged foothills rising to a height of 4,000 feet.
"Viewed from northward the Queen Maud Range presents a vast array of low-lying peaks which increase progressively in height to the southward where, about 15 miles from the shelf ice, stand great tabular mountain masses, 13,000 feet high, having a sharply defined fault-line scarp on the northern side. The northern foothills are dark-colored gneisses and schists with veins of granite and quartz. These foothills show marked glacierization with well-developed cirques and aretes. The high tabular mountains of the horst, are regular and even in outline, presenting broad domes with precipitous fronts to the north showing the granite structure capped by a series of horizontally bedded sandstone with intruded dolerite sills."
Glaciers.
The Queen Maud Mountains are crossed by several major glaciers that flow from the Antarctic Plateau to the Ross Ice Shelf, and divide the mountains.
Other glaciers with outlets on the Ross Ice Shelf include
These glaciers in turn are generally fed by smaller valley glaciers.
Mountain ranges.
Beardmore–Shackleton.
Mountain groups or ranges between Beardmore Glacier and Shackleton Glacier include:
Shackleton–Liv.
Mountain groups or ranges between Shackleton Glacier and Liv Glacier include:
Liv–Amundsen.
Mountain groups or ranges between Liv Glacier and Amundsen Glacier include:
Amundsen–Scott.
Mountain groups or ranges between Amundsen Glacier and Scott Glacier include:
Scott–Reedy.
Mountain groups or ranges between Scott Glacier and Reedy Glacier include:
References.
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Sources.
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