Mount Kirkpatrick

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The Mount Kirkpatrick, also Mount Kilpatrick, is an ice-free mountain in Antarctica eight kilometers west of Mount Dickerson. Mount Kirkpatrick is with 4528 meters, the highest elevation in the Queen Alexandra Range and also the highest peak of the entire Transantarctic Mountains.

The mountain was discovered by a four-member team to the British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton during the march towards geographical south pole during the Nimrod Expedition (1907-1909) and named after Alexander Bryce Kirkpatrick (1865 - unknown), a businessman from Glasgow, of the expedition financially had supported.

Fossil finds on Mount Kirkpatrick

In 1994, William R. Hammer and William J. Hickerson published the scientific description of the theropod dinosaur Cryolophosaurus ellioti. Its fossils were found in 1991 by a run by the U.S. Professor Hammer research group in about 4100 meters above sea level on the slopes of Mount Kirkpatrick in the volcanic siltstone of the Hanson Formation. 2003 more remains were discovered, a total retrieved the expedition members, about half of the skeleton. The approximately six meters long, carnivorous Cryolophosaurus lived during the Early Jurassic ( Pliensbachian ) before about 190 million years ago when the current Antarctic continent still formed part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana and the climate was much milder. Thus, he is the oldest representative of the Tetanurae, the dinosaur group composed of most theropods. He is the first dinosaur that was found in Antarctica and scientifically described. The name " Cryolophosaurus ", which means " frozen crest lizard", refers to both the unusual finding situation as well as on a " ridge " on the nasals, a bone along the cranial center above the upper jaw. Besides Cryolophosaurus found Hammer and his team still further remains of dinosaurs, in 2004 the bones of an original, massospondyliden prosauropods. More came to light fossils are a single tooth from the right lower jaw of a Tritylodontiden and the thigh of a pterosaur.