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Mount Faraway
Mount Faraway is a prominent, snow-covered mountain, high, marking the southern extremity of the Theron Mountains of Antarctica. It was discovered by the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1956, and so named because during days of sledging toward this mountain they never seemed to be any nearer to it. Important Bird Area Mount Faraway is part of the 665 ha Coalseam Cliffs and Mount Faraway Important Bird Area (IBA), designated as such by BirdLife International because it supports a colony of about 10,000 breeding pairs of Antarctic petrels. The birds nest in a scree-filled hollow between two 60 m high dolerite cliffs, a location also known as Stewart Buttress. Other birds recorded as breeding in the vicinity include snow petrels and south polar skua The south polar skua (''Stercorarius maccormicki'') is a large seabird in the skua family, Stercorariidae. An older name for the bird is MacCormick's skua, after explorer and naval surgeon Robert McCormick, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antarctic Petrel, Antarctic Peninsula (5940362516)
The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau, and other island territories located on the Antarctic Plate or south of the Antarctic Convergence. The Antarctic region includes the ice shelves, waters, and all the island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence, a zone approximately wide and varying in latitude seasonally. The region covers some 20 percent of the Southern Hemisphere, of which 5.5 percent (14 million km2) is the surface area of the Antarctica continent itself. All of the land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude are administered under the Antarctic Treaty System. Biogeographically, the Antarctic realm is one of eight biogeographic realms on Earth's land surface. Climate change in Antarctica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theron Mountains
The Theron Mountains () are a group of mountains, extending in a NE-SW direction for and rising , on the eastern side of the Filchner Ice Shelf. They were first seen from the air in 1956 by the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958 was a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that successfully completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole. It was the first expedition to reach the South ... (CTAE) and named for the ''Theron'', the ship of the CTAE in 1955–56. References * Mountain ranges of Coats Land Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf {{CoatsLand-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958 was a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that successfully completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole. It was the first expedition to reach the South Pole overland for 46 years, preceded only by Amundsen's expedition and Scott's expedition in 1911 and 1912. In keeping with the tradition of polar expeditions of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, the CTAE was a private venture, though it was supported by the governments of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, United States, Australia and South Africa, as well as many corporate and individual donations, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth II. It was headed by British explorer Vivian Fuchs, with New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary leading the New Zealand Ross Sea Support team. The New Zealand party included scientists participating in International Geophysical Year research while the British team were separately based at Halley ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife International. There are over 13,000 IBAs worldwide. These sites are small enough to be entirely conserved and differ in their character, habitat or ornithological importance from the surrounding habitat. In the United States the program is administered by the National Audubon Society. Often IBAs form part of a country's existing protected area network, and so are protected under national legislation. Legal recognition and protection of IBAs that are not within existing protected areas varies within different countries. Some countries have a National IBA Conservation Strategy, whereas in others protection is completely lacking. History In 1985, following a specific request from the European Economic Community, Birdlife International dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide. It has a membership of more than 2.5 million people across List of BirdLife International national partner organisations, 116 country partner organizations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, the National Audubon Society, and American Bird Conservancy. BirdLife International has identified 13,000 Important Bird Area, Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas and is the official International Union for Conservation of Nature's IUCN Red List, Red List authority for birds. BirdLife International has established that 1,375 bird species (13% of the total) are threatened with extinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antarctic Petrel
The Antarctic petrel (''Thalassoica antarctica'') is a boldly marked dark brown and white petrel, found in Antarctica, most commonly in the Ross and Weddell Seas. They eat Antarctic krill, fish, and small squid. They feed while swimming but can dive from both the surface and the air. Taxonomy and systematics Captain James Cook saw the Antarctic petrel on his second voyage to the south Pacific. In 1773 both Cook and the naturalist Georg Forster mentioned the petrel in their separate accounts of the voyage. Forster wrote: On the 17th, in the forenoon, we crossed the antarctic circle, and advanced into the southern frigid zone, which had hitherto remained impenetrable to all navigators. Some days before this period we had seen a new species of petrel, of a brown colour, with a white belly and rump, and a large white spot on the wings, which we now named the antarctic petrel, as we saw great flights of twenty on thirty of them hereabouts, of which we shot many that unfortunately ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolerite
Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained to aphanitic chilled margins which may contain tachylite (dark mafic glass). ''Diabase'' is the preferred name in North America, while ''dolerite'' is the preferred name in the rest of the English-speaking world, where sometimes the name ''diabase'' refers to altered dolerites and basalts. Some geologists prefer to avoid confusion by using the name ''microgabbro''. The name ''diabase'' comes from the French , and ultimately from the Greek 'act of crossing over, transition', whereas the name ''dolerite'' comes from the French , from the Greek 'deceitful, deceptive', because it was easily confused with diorite. Petrography Diabase normally has a fine but visible texture of euhedral lath-shaped plagioclase crystals (62%) set in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stewart Buttress
Stewart Buttress is a rock bluff, 1,005 m high, 3.7 km south of Maro Cliffs in the Theron Mountains. First mapped by Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1956–57) and named for Reginald H.A. Stewart, meteorologist with the advance party of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1955–56. Important Bird Area Stewart Buttress is part of the 665 ha Coalseam Cliffs and Mount Faraway Important Bird Area (IBA), designated as such by BirdLife International because it supports a colony of about 10,000 breeding pairs of Antarctic petrels. The birds nest in a scree-filled hollow between two 60 m high dolerite cliffs. Other birds recorded as breeding in the vicinity include snow petrels and south polar skuas. References External links * Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Seabird colonies Cliffs of Coats Land {{CoatsLand-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
