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Oamaru Peak
Mount Terra Nova is a snow-covered mountain, high, between Mount Erebus and Mount Terror volcanoes on Ross Island in Antarctica. It was first mapped by the British National Antarctic Expedition (BrNAE) 1901–04, and named for the '' Terra Nova'', relief ship for this expedition and the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13. Location Mount Terra Nova lies between Mount Erebus to the west and Mount Terror to the east. It is south of Lewis Bay and north of Windless Bight. The Aurora Glacier and Terror Glacier drain its southern slopes. Geology Mount Terra Nova is a dormant volcano. It is in the Erebus province of the McMurdo Volcanic Group. The blue-ice area at the summit has a diverse range of tephra. A 2014 study found seven layers: two phonolitic, one trachybasaltic, one trachytic, and two with a mixture of basanite, trachybasalt, phonolite, and trachyte glass shards. Immediately below the summit there are outcrops of basalt, olivine basalt, and scoria. Most of the outc ...
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Hut Point Peninsula
Hut Point Peninsula () is a long, narrow peninsula from wide and long, projecting south-west from the slopes of Mount Erebus on Ross Island, Antarctica. McMurdo Station (US) and Scott Base (NZ) are Antarctic research stations located on the Hut Point Peninsula. It is also home to historical sites including the Discovery Hut from Robert Falcon Scott's 1901 expedition, and memorials of various types. Hut Point Peninsula is the most inhabited place on Antarctica since the 1950s and is continuously occupied. History The British National Antarctic Expedition (1901–04) under Robert Falcon Scott built its Discovery Hut on Hut Point, at the southern headland of the peninsula. Members of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13 (BAE), under Scott, wintering on Cape Evans and often using the hut during their journeys, came to refer to the whole peninsula as the Hut Point Peninsula. Historic sites and monuments Several features on Hut Point, including the cross memorial ...
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Phonolitic
Phonolite is an uncommon shallow intrusive or extrusive rock, of intermediate chemical composition between felsic and mafic, with texture ranging from aphanitic (fine-grained) to porphyritic (mixed fine- and coarse-grained). Phonolite is a variation of the igneous rock trachyte that contains nepheline or leucite rather than quartz. It has an unusually high (12% or more) Na2O + K2O content, defining its position in the TAS classification of igneous rocks. Its coarse grained (phaneritic) intrusive equivalent is nepheline syenite. Phonolite is typically fine grained and compact. The name ''phonolite'' comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "sounding stone" due to the metallic sound it produces if an unfractured plate is hit; hence, the English name ''clinkstone'' is given as a synonym. Formation Unusually, phonolite forms from magma with a relatively low silica content, generated by low degrees of partial melting (less than 10%) of highly aluminous rocks of the lower crust suc ...
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United States Board On Geographic Names
The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a Federal government of the United States, federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geography, geographic names throughout the federal government of the United States. History Following the American Civil War, more and more American pioneer, American settlers began moving westward, prompting the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government to pursue some sort of consistency for referencing landmarks on maps and in official documents. As such, on January 8, 1890, Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Office, wrote to 10 noted geographers "to suggest the organization of a Board made up of representatives from the different Government services interested, to which may be referred any disputed question of geographical orthography." President Benjamin Harrison si ...
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Scoria
Scoria or cinder is a pyroclastic, highly vesicular, dark-colored volcanic rock formed by ejection from a volcano as a molten blob and cooled in the air to form discrete grains called clasts.Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. Jackson, eds. (2005) ''Glossary of Geology'' (5th ed.). Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute. 779 pp. It is typically dark in color (brown, black or purplish-red), and basaltic or andesitic in composition. Scoria has relatively low density, as it is riddled with macroscopic ellipsoidal vesicles (gas bubbles), but in contrast to pumice, scoria always has a specific gravity greater than 1 and sinks in water. Scoria may form as part of a lava flow, typically near its surface, or as fragmental ejecta ( lapilli, blocks, and bombs), for instance in Strombolian eruptions that form steep-sided scoria cones, also called cinder cones. Scoria's holes or vesicles form when gases dissolved in the original magma come out of solution as it er ...
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Olivine
The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron Silicate minerals, silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of Nesosilicates, nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickly on the surface. Olivine has many uses, such as the gemstone peridot (or chrysolite), as well as industrial applications like metalworking processes. The ratio of magnesium to iron varies between the two endmember (mineralogy), endmembers of the solid solution series: forsterite (Mg-endmember: ) and fayalite (Fe-endmember: ). Compositions of olivine are commonly expressed as Mole (unit), molar percentages of forsterite (Fo) and/or fayalite (Fa) (''e.g.'', Fo70Fa30, or just Fo70 with Fa30 implied). Forsterite's melting temperature is unusually high at atmospheric pressure, almost , while fayalite's is much lower – about . Melting temperature varies smoothly between the two end ...
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Basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial planet, rocky planet or natural satellite, moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt. Rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt is chemically equivalent to slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro. The eruption of basalt lava is observed by geologists at about 20 volcanoes per year. Basalt is also an important rock type on other planetary bodies in the Solar System. For example, the bulk of the plains of volcanism on Venus, Venus, which cover ~80% of the surface, are basaltic; the lunar mare, lunar maria are plains of flood-basaltic lava flows; and basalt is a common rock on the surface of Mars. Molten basalt lava has a low viscosity due to its relatively low silica content (between 45% and 52%), resulting in rapidly moving lava flo ...
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Trachyte
Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava (or shallow intrusions) enriched with silica and alkali metals. It is the volcanic equivalent of syenite. Trachyte is common wherever alkali magma is erupted, including in late stages of ocean island volcanismMacDonald 1983, pp. 51–52 and in continental rift valleys, above mantle plumes,Philpotts and Ague 2009, pp. 390–394 and in areas of back-arc extension. Trachyte has also been found in Gale crater on Mars. Trachyte has been used as decorative building stone and was extensively used as dimension stone in the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Chemical composition Trachyte has a silica content of 60 to 65% and an alkali oxide content of over 7%. This gives it less SiO2 than rhyolite and more (Na2O plus K2O) than dacite. These chemical differe ...
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Phonolite
Phonolite is an uncommon shallow intrusive or extrusive rock, of intermediate chemical composition between felsic and mafic, with texture ranging from aphanitic (fine-grained) to porphyritic (mixed fine- and coarse-grained). Phonolite is a variation of the igneous rock trachyte that contains nepheline or leucite rather than quartz. It has an unusually high (12% or more) Na2O + K2O content, defining its position in the TAS classification of igneous rocks. Its coarse grained (phaneritic) intrusive equivalent is nepheline syenite. Phonolite is typically fine grained and compact. The name ''phonolite'' comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "sounding stone" due to the metallic sound it produces if an unfractured plate is hit; hence, the English name ''clinkstone'' is given as a synonym. Formation Unusually, phonolite forms from magma with a relatively low silica content, generated by low degrees of partial melting (less than 10%) of highly aluminous rocks of the lower crust su ...
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Trachybasalt
Trachybasalt is a volcanic rock with a composition between trachyte and basalt. It resembles basalt but has a high content of alkali metal oxides. Minerals in trachybasalt include alkali feldspar, calcic plagioclase, olivine, clinopyroxene and likely very small amounts of leucite or analcime. Description An aphanitic (fine-grained) igneous rock is classified as trachybasalt when it has a silica content of about 49% and a total alkali metal oxide content of about 6%. This places trachybasalt in the S1 field of the TAS classification, TAS diagram. Trachybasalt is further divided into sodium-rich ''hawaiite'' and potassium-rich ''potassic trachybasalt'', with wt% > + 2 for hawaiite. The intrusive equivalent of trachybasalt is monzonite. Trachybasalt is not defined on the QAPF diagram, which classifies crystalline igneous rock by its relative content of feldspars and quartz. However, the U.S. Geological Survey defines trachybasalt as a mafic volcanic rock (composed of over 35% ma ...
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Basanite
Basanite () is an igneous, volcanic ( extrusive) rock with aphanitic to porphyritic texture. It is composed mostly of feldspathoids, pyroxenes, olivine, and calcic plagioclase and forms from magma low in silica and enriched in alkali metal oxides that solidifies rapidly close to the Earth's surface. Description Basanite is an aphanitic (fine-grained) igneous rock that is low in silica and enriched in alkali metals. Of its total content of quartz, feldspar, and feldspathoid ( QAPF), between 10% and 60% by volume is feldspathoid and over 90% of the feldspar is plagioclase. Quartz is never present. This places basanite in the basanite/ tephrite field of the QAPF diagram. Basanite is further distinguished from tephrite by having a normative olivine content greater than 10%. While the IUGS recommends classification by mineral content whenever possible, volcanic rock can be glassy or so fine-grained that this is impractical, and then the rock is classified chemically using the TA ...
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Trachytic
Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava (or shallow intrusions) enriched with silica and alkali metals. It is the volcanic equivalent of syenite. Trachyte is common wherever alkali magma is erupted, including in late stages of ocean island volcanismMacDonald 1983, pp. 51–52 and in continental rift valleys, above mantle plumes,Philpotts and Ague 2009, pp. 390–394 and in areas of back-arc extension. Trachyte has also been found in Gale crater on Mars. Trachyte has been used as decorative building stone and was extensively used as dimension stone in the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Chemical composition Trachyte has a silica content of 60 to 65% and an alkali oxide content of over 7%. This gives it less SiO2 than rhyolite and more (Na2O plus K2O) than dacite. These chemical differences are c ...
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Trachybasaltic
Trachybasalt is a volcanic rock with a composition between trachyte and basalt. It resembles basalt but has a high content of alkali metal oxides. Minerals in trachybasalt include alkali feldspar, calcic plagioclase, olivine, clinopyroxene and likely very small amounts of leucite or analcime. Description An aphanitic (fine-grained) igneous rock is classified as trachybasalt when it has a silica content of about 49% and a total alkali metal oxide content of about 6%. This places trachybasalt in the S1 field of the TAS diagram. Trachybasalt is further divided into sodium-rich ''hawaiite'' and potassium-rich ''potassic trachybasalt'', with wt% > + 2 for hawaiite. The intrusive equivalent of trachybasalt is monzonite. Trachybasalt is not defined on the QAPF diagram, which classifies crystalline igneous rock by its relative content of feldspars and quartz. However, the U.S. Geological Survey defines trachybasalt as a mafic volcanic rock (composed of over 35% mafic minerals) in wh ...
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