Ward Valley () is an ice-free valley that lies between Porter Hills and Xanadu Hills and east of the snout of Ward Glacier in the

Denton Hills The Denton Hills () are a group of rugged foothills, long southwest–northeast and wide, to the east of the Royal Society Range on the Scott Coast, Victoria Land, Antarctica. The Denton Hills comprise a series of eastward-trending ridges and v ...

Scott Coast Scott Coast () is the portion of the coast of Victoria Land, Antarctica between Cape Washington and Minna Bluff. It was named by the New Zealand Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1961 after Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Royal Navy, leader of the ...

, Antarctica. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN; 1994) in association with Ward Glacier and Ward Lake.

Location

Ward Valley is in the

. It is one of the

McMurdo Dry Valleys The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of largely Antarctic oasis, snow-free valleys in Antarctica, located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound. The Dry Valleys experience extremely low humidity and surrounding mountains prevent the flow of ...

. It lies between Hidden Valley to the northeast and Howchin Glacier to the southwest. It opens into the

Koettlitz Glacier Koettlitz Glacier () is a large Antarctic glacier lying west of Mount Morning and Mount Discovery in the Royal Society Range, flowing from the vicinity of Mount Cocks northeastward between Brown Peninsula and the mainland into the ice shelf of ...

to the southeast.

Features

Ward Glacier

. Small glacier between Terminus Mountain and Howchin Glacier on the east side of the Royal Society Range in Victoria Land. Named by Taylor of the

British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13 The ''Terra Nova'' Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. Led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition had various scientific and geographical objec ...

(BrAE) for L. Ward, a Tasmanian geologist.

Ward Stream

. A meltwater stream from the Ward Glacier. It flows eastward through Ward Valley and Ward Lake into Alph Lake. Named by New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) (1994) in association with Ward Glacier and Ward Lake.

Ward Lake

. A small lake, formed at the snout of the Ward Glacier, on the east side of the Royal Society Range in Victoria Land. Named by the BrAE (1910-13) after Ward Glacier.

Porter Hills

. A series of ice-free hills which rise to in Wilson Hill and extend west-east between Hidden Valley and Ward Valley. Named by US-ACAN (1994) after Raymond C. Porter, Electronics Technician, USCG, a crewman of United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Glacier, who was killed in an offloading accident at McMurdo Station, February 8, 1979.

Wilson Hill

. An ice-free hill at standing southwest of Janosy Hill, in the Porter Hills, Scott Coast. Named by US-ACAN (1994) after Terry J. Wilson, a geologist with the Byrd Polar Research Center geological party in Victoria Land, 1989-90. Royal Society Range, 1991-92, a principal investigator in United States Antarctic Project (United States ArmyP) Transantarctic Mountains deformation network research over several field seasons through 2005-06.

Janosy Hill

. A hill rising to high just west of Mirabilite Pond in the Porter Hills. Named by US-ACAN (1994) after Robert J. Janosy, a geologist with the Byrd Polar Research Center geological field party to the Royal Society Range, 1991-92.

Xanadu Hills

. A ridge of hills lying between Ward Valley and the

Alph River Alph River () is a small river, flowing in summertime, on the northern side of Koettlitz Glacier, Scott Coast, Antarctica. It rises from Koettlitz ice at the upper end of Pyramid Trough and from south to north includes Pyramid Ponds, Trough Lake ...

. Named by New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) in 1994 in connection with the adjacent Alph River, an earlier name inspired by the 1816 work ''

Kubla Khan "Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream" () is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to "Kub ...

'' by English poet

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

. The name Xanadu used in the poem is an archaic romanisation of

Shangdu Shangdu (; lit. "Upper Capital"; ), known in the West as Xanadu, was the summer capital of the Yuan dynasty under Kublai Khan. Located in what is now Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia, it was designed by Chinese architect Liu Bingzhong and served as ...

, the summer capital of

Kublai Khan Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the ...

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

in China.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{Include-USGov , agency=United States Geological Survey Valleys of Victoria Land Scott Coast