The Annandags Peaks () are a group of small, isolated peaks about southwest of the Jule Peaks (Christmas Peaks) in

Queen Maud Land Queen Maud Land () is a roughly region of Antarctica Territorial claims in Antarctica, claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20th meridian west, 20° west, specifically the Caird Coast, ...

. They were mapped by Norwegian cartographers from surveys and from air photos by the

Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition The Norwegian–British–Swedish Antarctic Expedition (also known as NBSX or NBSAE) (1949–1952) was the first Antarctica expedition involving an international team of scientists. The team members came from Norway, Sweden and the British Commonw ...

(1949–52) and named "Annandagstoppane" (

Boxing Day Boxing Day, also called as Offering Day is a holiday celebrated after Christmas Day, occurring on the second day of Christmastide (26 December). Boxing Day was once a day to donate gifts to those in need, but it has evolved to become a part ...

's Peaks). The Annadagstoppane granite is the only exposed part of the Archaean basement of the

Grunehogna Craton Vaalbara is a hypothetical Archean supercontinent consisting of the Kaapvaal craton (now in eastern South Africa) and the Pilbara Craton (now in north-western Western Australia). E. S. Cheney derived the name from the last four letters of each ...

and the only Archaean fragment of West

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

(Africa and South America) left in Antarctica. U-Pb dating of the youngest

detrital Detritus (; adj. ''detrital'' ) is particles of rock derived from pre-existing rock through weathering and erosion.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Ed, Stephen Marshak, p G-7 A fragment of detritus is called a clast.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Ed, Stephen ...

zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of th ...

s from Annandagstoppane returned an age of 3067±8 Ma and a tectonic-magmatic history identical to that of the Kaapvaal craton in southern Africa. This suggests that the Kaapvaal-Grunehogna Craton remained stable for 2.5 billion years before it was split by the

Pan-African orogeny The Pan-African orogeny was a series of major Neoproterozoic orogenic events which related to the formation of the supercontinents Gondwana and Pannotia about 600 million years ago. This orogeny is also known as the Pan-Gondwanan or Saldanian Oro ...

. Hafnium dating of

phenocryst image:montblanc granite phenocrysts.JPG, 300px, Granites often have large feldspar, feldspathic phenocrysts. This granite, from the Switzerland, Swiss side of the Mont Blanc massif, has large white phenocrysts of plagioclase (that have trapezoid sh ...

ic and detrital zircons in the granite revealed several crustal sources up to 3.9 billion years old. This suggests that intracrustal melting and recycling was common in the Mesoarchaean and may be an important process in the initial stabilisation of

continental crust Continental crust is the layer of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks that forms the geological continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as '' continental shelves''. This layer is sometimes called '' si ...

(i.e. the formation of the first

craton A craton ( , , or ; from "strength") is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere, which consists of Earth's two topmost layers, the crust and the uppermost mantle. Having often survived cycles of merging and rifting of contine ...

s.)

References

Mountains of Queen Maud Land Princess Martha Coast {{PrincessMarthaCoast-geo-stub