The Ceres Nunataks () are a group of three

nunatak A nunatak (from Inuit language, Inuit ) is the summit or ridge of a mountain that protrudes from an ice field or glacier that otherwise covers most of the mountain or ridge. They often form natural pyramidal peaks. Isolated nunataks are also cal ...

s located immediately east of the base of Shostakovich Peninsula in southern

Alexander Island Alexander Island, which is also known as Alexander I Island, Alexander I Land, Alexander Land, Alexander I Archipelago, and Zemlja Alexandra I, is the largest island of Antarctica. It lies in the Bellingshausen Sea west of Palmer Land, Antarcti ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. They were mapped by the

Directorate of Overseas Surveys The Ordnance Survey International or Ordnance Survey Overseas Directorate its predecessors built an archive of air photography, map and survey records for the United Kingdom from 1946 to 1999. The Ordnance Survey International Collection (formerly ...

from satellite imagery supplied by the U.S.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the United States's civil space program, aeronautics research and space research. Established in 1958, it su ...

in cooperation with the

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March ...

, and named by the

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) an ...

after Ceres, one of the

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s lying between the orbits of the planets

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

and

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

Geology

According to the British Antarctic Survey's (BAS) aeromagnetic 1975 survey of Ceres Nunataks and nearby Astraea Nunatak, this geographical feature is rich in the igneous rocks

Diorite Diorite ( ) is an intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is Intermediate composition, inter ...

and

Tonalite Tonalite is an igneous rock, igneous, plutonic (Intrusive rock, intrusive) rock (geology), rock, of felsic composition, with phaneritic (coarse-grained) texture. Feldspar is present as plagioclase (typically oligoclase or andesine) with alkali fe ...

as presumed by the rock samples which were observed by BAS during this survey.

Aeromagnetic Survey of Ceres Nunataks and Astraea Nunatak

In December 1975, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) (originally known as the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS)) embarked on an 8-week long survey observing the proposed theory of Ceres Nunataks and Astraea Nunatak having an aeromagnetic connection between one another. I. A. Crawford and R. W. Girdler embarked on the survey, along with other accompanists and personnel members, flying at a constant barometric altitude of approximately 1130 meters (3707 feet, with an east–west flightline separation of about 7.5 kilometers. Here, they proved that these geographical features were rich in geologic minerals which shared similar characteristics. Data was sampled at one-second intervals, which, at ground speed of approximately 240 kilometers per hour, equates to 15 data points for every kilometer covered. The total distance traveled on the surface was 2200 kilometers (1367 miles). The equipment used included a Geometrics G-803 proton precision magnetometer with both analogue and digital recording, a Bendix DRA-12 Doppler navigation system and Sperry C-12 gyro-magnetic compass, and a Bonzer radio altimeter. Overall, the 2-month long survey was a successful event and contributed to the history of Alexander Island and the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martin in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica. ...

in itself. Former contributors to this survey include: * Barker, P. F. - Studied the Cenozoic subduction history of the Antarctic Peninsula region. * Bell, C. M. - Observed the geology of the southern portion of Alexander Island. * Bhattacharyya, B. K. - Examined the magnetic anomalies due to prism-shaped bodies with arbitrary polarization. * Burn R. W. - Studied multiple fields of Alexander Island, such as the early Tertiary calc-alkaline volcanism on the island and researching the geology of the nearby LeMay Mountain Range due 40-50 kilometers north of Staccato Peaks. * Care, B. W. - Like Burn, Care studied the vast majority of fields involving Alexander Island, such as archiving geographic reports on the

Havre Mountains The Havre Mountains () are a large group of mountains forming the northwestern extremity of Alexander Island, Antarctica, extending in an east–west direction between Cape Vostok and the Russian Gap. They were first seen in 1821 by a Russian exp ...

Lassus Mountains The Lassus Mountains () are a large group of mountains, long and wide, rising to and extending south from Palestrina Glacier in the northwest part of Alexander Island, Antarctica. They overlook Lazarev Bay and a few minor islands within the ba ...

and other miscellaneous peaks within the vicinity of northern Alexander Island. * Coles R. W. - Conducted two magnetic interpretation methods using rectangular prisms. * Collinson, D. W. - Created an anisotropic susceptibility meter, along with Molyneux, L. and Stone, D. B. * Crabtree, R. D. - Constructed a British Antarctic Territory ice thickness map * Crawford, I. A. - Proposed an analysis of aeromagnetic data over the Staccato Peaks region of Alexander Island, Antarctica, along with Girdler, R. W. * Edwards, C. W. - Collected early Mesozoic marine fossils from the central portion of Alexander Island. * Fabiano, E. B. - Observed grid values of total magnetic intensity, along with the help of former geophysicist Peddie, N. W. * Pankhurst, R. J. - Studied the geochronology of

Graham Land Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee ...

, Antarctica. * Peddie, N. W. - Former geophysicist of BAS. * Renner R. G. B. - Former member of BAS and accepted the aeromagnetic survey to commence, chief of the 1975 survey. * Smellie, J. L. - A complete arc-trench system recognized in Gondwana sequences of the Antarctic Peninsula region. * Streckeisen, A. - Gave to each plutonic body its proper name. * Suarez, M. - Credited for having charted a Plate-tectonic model for the southern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula (Palmer Land) and its relation to the southern

Andes Mountain Range The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long and wide (widest between 18°S ...

References

*

{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130518015327/http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/documents/bas_bulletins/bulletin70_04.pdf , date=18 May 2013 Nunataks of Alexander Island