X-Nico

unusual facts about McMurdo



Benmoreite

An origin by fractionation from basanite through nepheline hawaiite to nepheline benmoreite has been demonstrated for a volcanic suite in the McMurdo Volcanic Group of late Cenozoic age in McMurdo Sound area.

Dailey Islands

She worked at South Pole Station as general field assistant the first two seasons; from 1981, she worked for 15 seasons as heavy equipment operator at Williams Field, McMurdo Sound, with assignments at field camps including Siple Dome, Siple Station, and Byrd Surface Camp.

Friedmann Valley

It was named in 1992 by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names after E. Imre Friedmann, a biologist at the Polar Desert Research Center, Florida State University, who in virtually every austral summer, 1976–87, led United States Antarctic Research Program field parties in the study of microorganisms in rocks of the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

This expedition set out from Vahsel Bay, following a route which avoided the Beardmore Glacier altogether, and bypassed much of the Ross Ice Shelf, reaching McMurdo Sound via a descent of the Skelton Glacier.

James B. McClintock

In 1998, the U.S. Geographic Board named McClintock Point on the north side of New Harbor, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, in recognition of his contributions to Antarctic marine biology.

This work, funded by NSF, has been conducted at the United States research facilities McMurdo Station (Ross Sea) and Palmer Station (Antarctic Peninsula).

John Balleny

The Balleny corridor through the Southern Ocean would be used by future explorers such as Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and Richard Byrd, and is used today by surface vessels resupplying McMurdo and other scientific bases located in and around the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica.

Jon Johanson

Due to a lack of fuel he became stranded temporarily at the McMurdo-Scott base.

Margaret McMurdo

Margaret A McMurdo AC (b. 30 August 1954) is the current President of the Queensland Court of Appeal.

North-west White Island Antarctic Specially Protected Area

The site has been designated an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA 137) because it supports an unusual small breeding population of Weddell Seals, which is not only the most southerly known, but which has also been physically isolated from other populations by the advance of the McMurdo and Ross ice shelves.

Score Ridge

Named after Roberta Score, manager of the Antarctic Meteorite Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, 1978–96; member of ANSMET meteorite search teams in several areas of the Transantarctic Mountains, 1984–85 and 1988-89 field seasons; supervisor, Crary Science and Engineering Center (McMurdo), 1996-2001.

Spain Peak

It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names in 2005 after Rae Spain, who from 1979 to 2004 completed 22 field season deployments in various positions held for U.S. Antarctic Project support contractors at the McMurdo, Siple, Palmer, and South Pole Stations, and at remote field camp stations.

Stuckless Glacier

Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (1999) after John S. Stuckless, Department of Geology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb (later U.S. Geological Survey), who, in several seasons from 1972–73, investigated the geochemistry of McMurdo volcanic rocks, correlating samples from several Ross Island sites with DVDP core samples obtained in McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Winston Wong

The Expedition will travel 3,600 miles across Antarctica, from Patriot Hills on the west coast to the South Pole, heading north from there through the Trans-Antarctic Mountain Range, down the Leverett Glacier and across the Ross Ice Shelf to the coast at McMurdo.


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