pop-up recorders to measure bottom currents at if at all. (2) The eastern side of the plateau is nor- strategic locations. The Massachusetts Institute of mally faulted and very steep and appears to be a Technology geochemistry program required five large mirror-image of Broken Ridge (to the north) but samples of sea water in the deep ocean basins near is a much more complicated structure. (3) A ridge the Kerguelen Islands and near Australia. spur northeast of the Kerguelen Islands was pre- Owing to equipment malfunctions (now repaired) viously unreported and has an important effect on the sonobuoy program obtained only poor to fair bottom water circulation. results. Pack ice and limited time prevented the The sediments on the plateau and its flanks are oceanographers from obtaining water samples near mostly 1 to 2 km thick. Slump structures and a sedi- the Amery Ice Shelf. All other objectives were ment ridge exist on the eastern side. Basement veloc- achieved satisfactorily. ities on the plateau are typically 5.0 to 5.5 km per Preliminary results are not yet available from the sec. Normal faulting within the plateau massif is station work, which requires a good deal of analysis. complex and includes repetitive basin-and-range However, underway geophysical investigations re- structures and numerous graben-horst systems. There vealed numerous significant bottom features at vari- is evidence that much of the plateau has undergone ance with the existing bathymetry: (1) Gribb Bank wave-base erosion and that it has subsided about does not exist in its plotted position (6130S. 88°E.), 1,300 in the erosion. Track of USNS Eltanin Cruise 47. Numbers show selected station locations. Geological investigations in the Queen Maud Mountains DAVID H. ELLIOT and DONALD A. COATES Mountains. The continuing program called for (1) data collection for 1:250,000 reconnaissance geologi- cal mapping of the Queen Maud Mountains, Institute of Polar Studies regional correlation and stratigraphic study of the The Ohio State University Beacon sequence, (3) regional studies of the baseme t rocks, (4) investigation of the late Cenozoic glacil deposits, and (5) the search for more vertebrae The success of the 1969-1970 field season in the fossils. Beardmore Glacier area (Elliot, 1970) provided a The scientific staff ranged from eight to 14 duririg considrable stimulus to the 1970-1971 field program the season. Ten geologists from The Ohio State Urü- of the Institute of Polar Studies in the Queen Maud versity and one from the University of Wisconsin car- 114 ANTARCTIC JOURNAL ned out geological and geophysical programs. The crusty type which develops in areas of little wind. search for vertebrate fossils was conducted by verte- Parts of the surface will support a man, but other brate paleontologists from the University of California parts will let him break through and drop 20 to at Berkeley and The American Museum of Natural 25 cm to the next crusty layer. The LC-130 planes History, New York. James Kitching, a vertebrate always break through the top surface and pack the paleontologist from the Bernard Price Institute for snow beneath. Probing for crevasses is difficult because Palaeontological Research, University of the Wit- crusty layers beneath the surface stop the probe even watersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, participated in snow bridges within crevasses. Light winds at the as an exchange scientist with the U.S. Antarctic Re- McGregor campsite made helicopter maintenance and search Program. His skill and knowledge of the South other camp work far easier than it was at Coalsack African Triassic vertebrate faunas were invaluable Bluff the previous year and at the Amundsen Camp assets to the expedition. The scientists were supported later. in the field by 16 officers and men of the VXE-6 Although investigations from the McGregor Glacier helicopter detachment and six men from Antarctic camp were principally in the Shackleton and Ramsey Support Activities of the U.S. Navy. Glacier areas, geologists worked at points as far dis- tant as the Dominion Range at the head of the Camps at McGregor and Amundsen Glaciers Beardmore Glacier and Mount Patrick near the mouth of the Beardmore. The helicopters flew a The first camp, consisting of four Jamesway huts, heavy schedule almost every day, and much was was established on McGregor Glacier by a U.S. Navy accomplished. construction crew and occupied by the scientists on David Elliot and James Collinson returned to November 8. Fieldwork began on November 10 and McMurdo and the United States in mid-December, continued without any major break until December 22 and Donald Coates took over from Elliot as scientific when the camp was moved to the Amundsen Glacier. leader. The move to the Amundsen Glacier camp, The McGregor campsite had been occupied by a constructed by the U.S. Navy, was accomplished on Texas Tech University geological expedition during December 22. This camp (0.5 km southeast of the the 1964-1965 season; the skiway used then by the 1963-1964 camp of Long and others) was colder LC-130 planes was still outlined by barrels, but to and windier than the McGregor Glacier camp and avoid any possibility of striking buried objects, the more typical of the Transantarctic Mountains. Work skiway was placed in a different position. Unfor- from this camp suffered more weather delays than at tunately, this new skiway proved to have a number McGregor Glacier, but by late January all major of small crevasses crossing it diagonally, and on No- objectives were accomplished, and the camp was vember 25 one was uncovered that might have caused closed on January 21. damage to a plane. So the old runway was intensively probed and dragged, but no crevasses were found, and Geological investigations it was used without incident until the camp was closed. The snow surface on McGregor Glacier is the The Queen Maud Mountains have been investi- gated by a number of geological field parties (La 120W 140W 160W 180 160E 140E Prade, 1970; Long, 1965; McLelland, 1967; Minshew, 1966; McGregor, 1965a,b; Wade et al., 1965), and therefore the scientific program this season concen- 85S Bennett trated on specific problems rather than a regional 11,61, Platform Dominion 01 survey. The stratigraphy is set out in the table; the formation names established earlier in the Queen Amunds:nj coalsock Alexandra Range, 200 km to the northwest (Barrett, OW Bluff in press), are used because the individual units es- ShocIleton G1. 7 Patric, ) J 160 Ramsey GI Beardmore tablished there are recognizable also in the Queen 83S 83 S / Maud Mountains. / Ross Information was gathered for the completion of The Cloudmaker and Plunket Point quadrangles and l6 OW Ice for compilation of five more quadrangles covering the area between the Shackleton Glacier and the Scott LEW Glacier. S 6 elf ARCTICA\ f-8Is Edmund Stump studied the metasedimentary and 9OE metavolcanic basement rocks. He found that the Late Precambrian metasedimentary Goldie Formation and its probable equivalent, the La Gorce Formation, crop Em out only northwest of the Ramsey Glacier and in the July—August 1971 115 Geologic section of the Queen Maud Mountains. Thickness, Age Formation Group or Supergroup Description m Late Recent lateral moraines Cenozoic Sirius Semilithified till with water-sorted lenses Jurassic Kirkpatrick Basalt Ferrar Group Tholeiitic basalts, a few sedimentary inter- 420+ beds with conchostracans Ferrar Dolerite Sills and dikes of tholeiitic dolerite through- out pre-Jurassic rocks Prebble Pyroclastic and laharic deposits 460+ Triassic Falla Sandstone, shale, Dicroidiurn 200+ Fremouw Beacon Arkosic sandstone, green-gray mudstone 700+ Supergroup Lystrosaurus zone fauna near base Buckley Arkosic and volcanic sandstone, dark-gray 450 shale, coal, Glossopteris Permian Fairchild Beacon Massive arkosic sandstone 200 Mackellar Supergroup Medium to dark-gray shale, with sand- 160 stone interbeds Pagoda Tillite, sandstone, mudstone, interbedded 3-150 Devonian Alexandra Beacon Sandstone, cross-bedded, fine to coarse 0-90+ Supergroup grained, buff Cambrian Henson Marble Marble, coarse-grained, gray to white, with Leverett minor intercalated clastic layers Wyatt Ross Massive, dark, silicic volcanics, minor units Taylor Supergroup of marble and cross-bedded quartzite Late Goldie Metagraywacke and shale, black, thin- to Precambrian La Gorce thick-bedded southern Amundsen and Scott Glacier areas, the uniform throughout the central Transantarctic Moun- intervening area being formed of the much less de- tains, and formations are relatively easy to correlate formed volcanics of the Wyatt and Taylor Formations over long distances despite this being a terrestrial and of the Queen Maud Batholith. On the Nilsen sequence. David Elliot investigated several Triassic Plateau the metavolcanic rocks are clearly uncon- sequences and one reported Triassic sequence in formable on the metasedimentary rocks. John the Dominion Range that turned out to be Permian. Burgener of the University of Wisconsin mapped and He also assisted Vaughn Wendland in a detailed sampled the Queen Maud Batholith for a geochemical study of the Jurassic lavas at Mount Bumstead and study. collected conchostracans from Mauger Nunatak, a Donald Coates made a regional study of the locality from which Paul Tasch had hoped to collect Permian tillite, which covers the post-Devonian the year before but was unable to reach because of erosion surface. The tillite ranges from silty with weather conditions. scattered pebbles to sandy with boulders. It is 3 to Paul Mayewski and R. P. Goldthwait studied 10 m thick over extensive areas of the fiat, post- glacial geology and discovered deposits of an early Devonian Maya erosion surface and as much as stage of glaciation in several areas.. These deposits 150 m thick in small areas. Coates also carried out are especially well preserved on Bennett Platform a regional reconnaissance gravity survey to extend and near Plunket Point in the Dominion Range.