Usnea Plug is a

volcanic plug A volcanic plug, also called a volcanic neck or lava neck, is a volcano, volcanic object created when magma hardens within a Volcanic vent, vent on an active volcano. When present, a plug can cause an extreme build-up of high gas pressure if risi ...

, 30 m from base to summit, rising to 117 m in the interior of

Byers Peninsula Byers Peninsula is a mainly ice-free peninsula forming the west end of Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It occupies , borders Ivanov Beach to the northeast and is separated from Rotch Dome on the east by the ridge ...

Livingston Island Livingston Island (Russian name ''Smolensk'', ) is an Antarctic island in the Southern Ocean, part of the South Shetland Islands, South Shetlands Archipelago, a group of List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands, Antarctic islands north of the ...

in the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands, Antarctic islands located in the Drake Passage with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the n ...

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 area was known to 19th century

sealers Sealer may refer either to a person or ship engaged in seal hunting, or to a sealant; associated terms include: Seal hunting * Sealer Hill, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica * Sealers' Oven, bread oven of mud and stone built by sealers around 1800 ...

. The feature's name derives from the genus of

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

Usnea ''Usnea'' is a genus of fruticose lichens in the large family Parmeliaceae. The genus, which currently contains roughly 130 species, was established by Michel Adanson in 1763. Species in the genus grow like leafless mini-shrubs or tassels anch ...

, prevalent on the plug and in this vicinity, and results from geological work by an American field party in early 1969.

Location

The hill is located at which is 790 m southwest of Chester Cone, 3.47 km north of

Nikopol Point Nikopol Point (Nos Nikopol \'nos ni-'ko-pol\) is an ice-free point on the south coast of Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica projecting 650 m east-southeastwards into Bransfield Strait and linked by a sp ...

, 5.54 km northeast of

Devils Point Devils Point is a point marking the southwest extremity of Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica and forming the southeast side of the entrance to Osogovo Bay and the west side of the entrance to Raskuporis ...

and 2.77 km east by south of Laager Point (British mapping in 1968, detailed Spanish mapping in 1992, and Bulgarian mapping in 2005 and 2009).

Maps

Península Byers, Isla Livingston.
Mapa topográfico a escala 1:25000. Madrid: Servicio Geográfico del Ejército, 1992. * L.L. Ivanov et al. Antarctica: Livingston Island and Greenwich Island, South Shetland Islands. Scale 1:100000 topographic map. Sofia: Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria, 2005. * L.L. Ivanov
Antarctica: Livingston Island and Greenwich, Robert, Snow and Smith Islands
Scale 1:120000 topographic map. Troyan: Manfred Wörner Foundation, 2009.

References

SCAR Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
Mountains of Livingston Island {{LivingstonIsland-geo-stub