Littlewood-Nunataks

- 77.883333333333 - 34.333333333333Koordinaten: 77 ° 53 '0 "S, 34 ° 20 ' 0 " W

The Littlewood - nunataks form a group of four flat ridge of rock on the coast of Prince Regent Luitpold -Land in Antarctica, which protrude from the ice cap.

Discovery and geographical location

Three of the four nunataks were discovered in January 1912 by the second German Antarctic Expedition under Wilhelm Filchner and mapped, but were then given no name yet. While a U.S. expedition with the USS Edisto in January 1959, the fourth Nunatak was discovered and named the Nunatakgruppe after oceanographers William H. Littlewood.

The nunataks located at 250 meters above sea level, about 25 km inland of the Vahselbucht on the southeast coast of the Weddell Sea. Just south of the nunataks opens the Lerch field glacier in the Vahselbucht. The nearest ice-free areas are the Bertrab - nunataks approximately 6 km to the southwest.

Geology

The nunataks consist of horizontally mounted rhyolites that were formed by volcanic activity before about 1110 mya. These are from 25 cm to 5 m by beating mighty mafic and felsic transitions. Since its formation, these rocks have not been altered by mountain building processes, whereas the rocks in the nearest ice-free mountains ( Shackleton Range 300 km to the southeast, Heimefrontfjella 800 km in the northwest) have been before 550 mya folded during the formation of Gondwana and highly overprinted metamorphic. According to the current state of research, the Bertrab, Littlewood and Moltke nunataks are the only outcrops of an otherwise completely ice-covered micro- continent, which was incorporated in the formation of Gondwana in Antarctica.