Mount Kauffman is a prominent mountain, high, that surmounts the northwest end of the

Ames Range The Ames Range () is a range of snow-covered, flat-topped, steep-sided mountains, extending in a north–south direction for and forming a right angle with the eastern end of the Flood Range in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Location The Ames R ...

Marie Byrd Land Marie Byrd Land (MBL) is an unclaimed region of Antarctica. With an area of , it is the largest unclaimed territory on Earth. It was named after the wife of American naval officer Richard E. Byrd, who explored the region in the early 20th centu ...

, Antarctica. It was mapped by the

United States 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 Mar ...

from surveys and

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 ...

air photos, 1959–65, and 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 S.K. Kauffman, U.S. Navy, a staff civil engineering officer who supervised the planning and building of

Plateau Station Plateau Station is an inactive American research and South Pole—Queen Maud Land Traverse support base on the central Antarctic Plateau. Construction on the site started on December 13, 1965, and the first traverse team (named SPQML II) ar ...

, 1965–66. It is connected to Mount Kosciusko by Gardiner Ridge which is at one end of Brown Valley. Kauffman consists of a potentially active

shield volcano A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid (low viscosity) lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more viscous lava ...

with a wide summit

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

. Minor

fumarolic A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or another rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...

activity was observed in 1977.

References

Volcanoes of Marie Byrd Land Polygenetic shield volcanoes Calderas of Antarctica Ames Range Miocene shield volcanoes {{MarieByrdLand-geo-stub