The Meyer Desert is a triangular ice-free area of about at the northern end of the

Dominion Range The Dominion Range () is a broad mountain range, about long, forming a prominent salient at the juncture of the Beardmore and Mill glaciers in Antarctica. The range is part of the Queen Maud Mountains The range was discovered by the British Ant ...

, Antarctica, near the confluence of

Beardmore Glacier The Beardmore Glacier in Antarctica is one of the largest valley glaciers in the world, being long and having a width of . It descends about from the Antarctic Plateau to the Ross Ice Shelf and is bordered by the Commonwealth Range of the Queen ...

and Mill Glacier. It was named by the

New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition The New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE) describes a series of scientific explorations of the continent Antarctica. The expeditions were notably active throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Features named by the expeditions 19 ...

of 1961–62 for

George Meyer George Meyer (born 1956) is an United States, American producer and writer. Meyer is best known for his work on ''The Simpsons'', where he served as a scriptwriter and gag writer (for which he is credited as a producer) and led the show's commu ...

of the

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 a presence in the ...

, who was scientific leader at

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is an American Antarctic research station on the southern tip of Ross Island. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is ...

in 1961, and led a field party into this area in the summer of 1961–62. A paper from 2003 reports the discovery of the first

freshwater mollusc Freshwater molluscs are those members of the phylum Mollusca which live in freshwater habitats, both lotic (flowing water) such as rivers, streams, canals, springs, and cave streams ( stygobite species) and lentic (still water) such as lakes, ...

remains from Antarctica in the Meyer Desert Formation. These include both an unidentified fragmentary lymnaeid (a

freshwater snail Freshwater snails are gastropod mollusks that live in fresh water. There are many different families. They are found throughout the world in various habitats, ranging from ephemeral pools to the largest lakes, and from small seeps and springs t ...

), and an unidentified true ''

Pisidium ''Pisidium'' is a genus of very small or minute freshwater clams known as pill clams or pea clams, aquatic bivalve molluscs in the family Sphaeriidae, the pea clams and fingernail clams. In some bivalve classification systems, the family Spha ...

'' (a

freshwater bivalve Freshwater bivalves are molluscs of the order (biology), order Bivalvia that inhabit freshwater ecosystems. They are one of the two main groups of freshwater molluscs, along with freshwater snails. The majority of bivalve molluscs are saltwater ...

References

Landforms of the Ross Dependency Dufek Coast {{DufekCoast-geo-stub