
The Beacon Heights () are a small cluster of peaks between
Beacon Valley
Beacon Valley () is an ice-free valley between Pyramid Mountain and Beacon Heights, in Victoria Land. It was mapped by the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13, and named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition (VUWAE) ...
and
Arena Valley
Arena Valley () is an ice-free valley, between East Beacon and New Mountain, which opens to the south side of Taylor Glacier in Victoria Land. It was given this descriptive name by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition (VUWAE ...
in
Quartermain Mountains
The Quartermain Mountains are a group of exposed mountains in Antarctica, about long, typical of ice-free features of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Victoria Land, located south of Taylor Glacier and bounded by Finger Mountain, Mount Handsley, Mou ...
,
Victoria Land
Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. I ...
, rising to in
West Beacon, and also including
East Beacon
The Quartermain Mountains are a group of exposed mountains in Antarctica, about long, typical of ice-free features of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Victoria Land, located south of Taylor Glacier and bounded by Finger Mountain, Mount Handsley, Mount Fe ...
and
South Beacon. They were named by
Hartley Ferrar, geologist with the
British National Antarctic Expedition
The ''Discovery'' Expedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839–18 ...
(1901–04). According to the
USGS GNIS gazetteer, the heights were named after the
Beacon Supergroup
The Beacon Supergroup is a geological formation exposed in Antarctica and deposited from the Devonian to the Triassic (). The unit was originally described as either a formation or sandstone, and upgraded to group and supergroup as time passed. It ...
which caps them,
though another source indicates that the type of rock was named after these hills.
References
*
Mountains of Victoria Land
Scott Coast
{{ScottCoast-geo-stub