Conrad Mountains

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View from the Dallmannbergen west across the Glopeken to the northern part of the Conrad Mountains

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The Conrad Mountains in Dronning Maud Land stands out over a length of 36 kilometers from the ice of Antarctica. It stretches some 200 km south of the Princess Astrid Coast in north-south direction. There is an average of five and a maximum of about ten kilometers wide. In January 1939, the mountain was discovered by the German Antarctic Expedition flights 1938/39, and documented with aerial photographs. The mountain was named after Fritz Conrad, director of the Nautical- Scientific Department of the Navy leadership and Chief of the Naval Weather Service in World War II.

Since most aerial photographs during the Second World War were lost, the mountain was again taken up by photogrammetry during the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition 1956-1960 and calibrated also control points on the ground for a more precise orientation. The Norsk Polarinstitutt created based on these aerial photos, a map series at a scale of 1:250,000, on the mountain named Conradfjella. The first geological research took place within the framework of the 4th Soviet Antarctic Expedition 1958-1960. The systematic geological mapping and exploration was continued by the GeoMaud 1995-1996 expedition.

Geography

The mountain consists of an elongated in north-south direction rocky ridge, which has an east-west stretch of 5 kilometers at its widest point. In the north, the mountain range dissolves into a number of nunataks, which are separated by glaciated areas. Approximately in the middle of the mountain range lies the Sandeggtind, the highest with 3053 m elevation of the mountain. Other prominent peaks are 2840m high Bjerkenuten at the south end of the mountain, the Sandhoe 2664 m and at the northern end of the Sandneshatten 2200 m. On the west side of the mountain is lined with an up to 4 km wide morainic. From neighboring mountains to the west and east, the mountain range is limited by wide glacier. The Sandeken in the west separates the Conrad Mountains from Short Mountain, east of the Glopeken forms the border with the Dallmannbergen. Both glaciers unite on the northern foothills of the mountains and flow out to the Lazarev Ice Shelf.

Geology

The mountain consists of highly metamorphosed, multiply folded gneisses and amphibolites, whose output rocks volcanic and granites are of an island arc with mesoproterozoischem age. At the turn Mesoproterozoikum / Neoproterozoic these rocks were in the collision of the island arc with the Kaapvaal craton - Grunehogna first overprinted deformed and metamorphosed. It melts penetrated with granitic and tonalitischer composition solidified in the form of thin transitions. Another deformation went through the rocks in the collision of West and East Gondwana about 540 mya, the current East-West was oriented Faltenbau. Individual folds are open in the nearly vertical walls of the mountains. At the north end is a syenite massif with about 2 km in diameter, the penetration after the fold there and froze. Since the Ordovician is subject to the mountain of the ablation.