Gordon Valley () is a small valley, the western half of which is occupied by a lobe of ice from

Walcott Neve Lennox-King Glacier is a large valley glacier, about long, draining Bowden Névé and flowing northeast between the Holland Range and the Queen Alexandra Range of Antarctica to enter Richards Inlet, Ross Ice Shelf. It was named by the New Zealan ...

, lying west of

Mount Falla Mount Falla () is a prominent conical mountain, high, standing northeast of Mount Stonehouse, between Berwick Glacier and Prebble Glacier, in the Queen Alexandra Range, Antarctica. It was sighted in January 1958 by the New Zealand party of the ...

in the

Queen Alexandra Range The Queen Alexandra Range is a major mountain range of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in the Ross Dependency region of Antarctica. It is about long, bordering the entire western side of Beardmore Glacier from the Polar Plateau ...

, Antarctica. It 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 ...

after Mark A. Gordon, a

United States Antarctic Research Program The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the A ...

aurora scientist at

Hallett Station Cape Hallett is a snow-free area (Antarctic oasis) on the northern tip of the Hallett Peninsula on the Ross Sea coast of Victoria Land, East Antarctica. Cape Adare lies to the north. History In 1956, during Operation Deep Freeze II, was dam ...

, 1959.Stewart, J., 2011. ''Antarctica: An Encyclopedia,'' 2nd ed. Jefferson, North Carolina and London, McFarland & Company, Inc. 1771 pp.

Geology and Paleontology

The Gordon Valley exposes the middle and upper

members Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

Fremouw Formation The Fremouw Formation is a Triassic-age rock formation in the Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica. It contains the oldest known fossils of tetrapods from Antarctica, including synapsids, reptiles and amphibians. Fossilized trees have also been ...

of the Beacon Supergroup. They consist of discontinous beds of

volcaniclastic Volcaniclastics are geologic materials composed of broken fragments (clasts) of volcanic rock. These encompass all clastic volcanic materials, regardless of what process fragmented the rock, how it was subsequently transported, what environment it ...

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

intercalated with

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, ...

and

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel wh ...

y mudstone, In the Gordon Valley, the upper member of Fremouw Formation contains a widely published and well-studied Triassic buried forest that consists of about 99 silicifed tree stumps and compressed leaves associated with

paleosol In the geosciences, paleosol (''palaeosol'' in Great Britain and Australia) is an ancient soil that formed in the past. The precise definition of the term in geology and paleontology is slightly different from its use in soil science. In geol ...

s and ancient stacked

fluvial In geography and geology, fluvial processes are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, the term glaciofluvial or fluv ...

palaeochannel A palaeochannel, also spelt paleochannel and also known as palaeovalley or palaeoriver, is a geological term describing a remnant of an inactive river or stream channel that has been filled or buried by younger sediment. The sediments that the ...

s deposited by low-sinuosity

braided stream A braided river, or braided channel, consists of a network of river channels separated by small, often temporary, islands called braid bars or, in English usage, '' aits'' or ''eyots''. Braided streams tend to occur in rivers with high sediment ...

s. In addition to the buried forest, the

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as e ...

exposed within the Gordon Valley have yielded numerous

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s of Triassic

tetrapod Tetrapods (; ) are four-limb (anatomy), limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant taxon, extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids (reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids (p ...

s, including ''

Cynognathus ''Cynognathus'' is an extinct genus of large-bodied cynodontian therapsids that lived in the Middle Triassic. It is known from a single species, ''Cynognathus crateronotus''. ''Cynognathus'' was a long predator closely related to mammals and ha ...

sp.'', and the first fossilized

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxon, taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () (chordates with vertebral column, backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the ...

tracks found in Antarctica.Cúneo, N.R., Taylor, E.L., Taylor, T.N. and Krings, M., 2003. ''In situ fossil forest from the upper Fremouw Formation (Triassic) of Antarctica: paleoenvironmental setting and paleoclimate analysis.'' ''Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology'', 197(3-4), pp.239-261.Isbell, J., Macdonald, D.I.M., 1991. ''Lithofacies analysis of the Triassic Fremouw Formation at the Gordon Valley vertebrate site.'' ''US Antarctic Journal'', 26, pp. 15-16.Macdonald, D.I.M., Isbell, J.L., Hammer, W.R., 1991. ''Vertebrate trackways from the Triassic Fremouw Formation, Queen Alexandra Range, Antarctica.'' ''US Antarctic Journal'', 26, pp. 20-22.

Go see

Mount Achernar Mount Achernar () is a peak forming the northeast end of the MacAlpine Hills, on the south side of Law Glacier. Named by the New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE) (1961–62) after the star Achernar used in fixing the surv ...

buried forest

References

Paleontological sites of Antarctica Valleys of the Ross Dependency Shackleton Coast {{ShackletonCoast-geo-stub