The Desko Mountains are a west-northwest–east-southeast mountain range on Rothschild Island, off northwest

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. ...

. The mountain range spans from Bates Peak to Overton Peak and rises to about at

Enigma Peak Enigma Peak is a peak, high, surmounting Fournier Ridge in the Desko Mountains, on Rothschild Island in Antarctica. It was probably seen from a distance by F. Bellingshausen in 1821, Jean-Baptiste Charcot in 1909, and the British Graham Land ...

Fournier Ridge Fournier Ridge () is an east–west ridge, long, rising to about in the western part of the Desko Mountains, on Rothschild Island in Antarctica. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for Commander James M. Fournier, United S ...

Geographical context

Other mountains nearby are Goward Peak, Schenck Peak, Morrill Peak and Thuma Peak. To the east lies

Lazarev Bay Lazarev Bay is a rectangular bay, long and wide, which separates Alexander Island from Rothschild Island and is bounded on the south side by the Wilkins Ice Shelf, which joins the east portion of Rothschild Island and the west portion of Alexande ...

, a rectangular bay that separates the east side of Rothschild Island from the north-west coast of Alexander Island. Antarctic Peninsula Cross Section

Exploration

The mountains were seen (in part) from a distance by F. Bellingshausen in 1821, and by

Jean-Baptiste Charcot Jean-Baptiste Étienne Auguste Charcot, better known in France as Commandant Charcot, (15 July 1867 in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris – 16 September 1936 at sea (30 miles north-west of Reykjavik, Iceland), was a French scientist, medical doctor ...

in 1909, but the nature of the feature remained obscure. The Desko mountain range was photographed from the air by U.S. Navy Operation Highjump and the

Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) was an expedition from 1947–1948 which researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. Background Finn Ronne led the RARE which was the final privately sponsored exp ...

in 1947. The mountain range was further mapped by air by D. Searle of the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) was an aerial survey of the Falkland Islands Dependencies The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the v ...

in 1960. The mountain range was further mapped by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

in 1966, and with

Landsat The Landsat program is the longest-running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. It is a joint NASA / USGS program. On 23 July 1972, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite was launched. This was eventually renamed to Lan ...

imagery since 1975. The island was named by the

Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN or US-ACAN) is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending commemorative names for features in Antarctica. History The committee was established ...

for Commander Daniel A. Desko, U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, Squadron VXE-6,

Operation Deep Freeze Operation Deep Freeze is the code name for a series of United States missions to Antarctica, beginning with "Operation Deep Freeze I" in 1955–56, followed by "Operation Deep Freeze II", "Operation Deep Freeze III", and so on. (There was an init ...

, 1977, and LC-130 aircraft commander, 1976.

External links

Desko Mountains
on

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

website
Desko Mountains
on

website
Desko Mountains distance calculator

Desko Mountains area map

References

Mountain ranges of Palmer Land {{PalmerLand-geo-stub

Geographical context

Exploration

See also

Further reading

External links

References