There are also the remnants of the semi-cylindrical canvas store buildings known as Jamesway huts. Where, previously, many ships were lost or damaged by storms, uncharted islands, or uncharted reefs, several safe transit lanes were identified. Wilkes Land | region, Antarctica | Britannica The Coldest Place on Earth (1969), written by Robert Thompson who led the September 1962 Wilkes-Vostock Traverse, returning to Wilkes in January 1963. A single analysis obtained from sample PRR-27979 yielded an apparent 232Th/208Pb age of 57717Ma (Fig. (June 30, 2023). Two xenoliths hosted in the granodiorite bedrock (samples CI-810A and CI-814B) have a granitic composition and contain igneous microstructures characterised by a lack of recrystallisation and the presence of interstitial igneous green amphibole. 20, EGU2018-5774, 2018. S. Meffre, J. Mulder, A. Stepanov and J. Thompson (ARC [Australian Research Council] Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposit, CODES, University of Tasmania), K. Goemann and S. Feig (Central Science Laboratory, University of Tasmania) and Y. Greau (ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems, CCFS, Macquarie University, Australia) are thanked for analytical assistance. 4). Kirkland, C. L. et al. They were one of the first home-made breweries in the country and nowadays, they are very well known for the . 3c) with oscillatory (e.g. Casey was named in honour of Richard, Baron Casey. Zircon chemistry and magma mixing, SE China: In-situ analysis of Hf isotopes, Tonglu and Pingtan igneous complexes. The Ohio State University Research Foundation Report. Charles Wilkes spent his entire working life in the United States Navy. As the northern ice melts, the Arctic Ocean is already the scene of international jockeying for mining rights. Sample and grain number are indicated for each image. Weighted mean ages are calculated to their 95% confidence level using analyses that are 10% discordant (within 2r uncertainty of concordia). Preliminary interpretations from the 2015 Coompana aeromagnetic survey. The expedition's goals would be to fill in the gaps in knowledge about the seas, weather, and lands in the extreme south to give American sailors an advantage over those of other nations when sailing those seas. He What remains at Wilkes are a number of barracks buildings known as Clements huts, and the remnants of the semi-cylindrical canvas store buildings known as Jamesway huts. Data reduction calculations and error propagations were done with Microsoft Excel via macros designed at the University of Tasmania using the techniques outlined by Sack et al.46. 3b), within error of the interpreted age of crystallisation of the host granodiorite (sample CI-814A2). 1b). A single outlier (spot 019) yielding Hfi ratio of 0.28101 and Hfi of 36.74 was excluded from the interpretation. Barham, M. et al. Fingerprinting Proterozoic Bedrock in Interior Wilkes Land, East Antarctica We provide the first geological evidence for the Antarctic counterparts of the Mesoproterozoic Coompana and Madura provinces, previously only documented in southern Australia and resolve the geometry of these conjugate Mesoproterozoic basement provinces in both a Rodinia and Gondwana configuration. In the process, however, the south polar exploits of their American forerunner, Charles Wilkes, have been largely forgotten. Cookie Settings, Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice, Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Discover the Secrets of its Ice, 200 Frozen Heads and Bodies Await Revival at This Arizona Cryonics Facility, The Real History Behind the Archimedes Dial in 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny', Huge New Spider Species Discovered in Mexican Cave, Eight of the Best Spots to Go Freshwater Diving or Snorkeling in the United States, Archaeologists Discover 25 Mesolithic Pits in England. Unbeknownst to Congress, Great Britain and France had reached similar decisions and were sending squadrons of ships south at the same time. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 140, 458468 (2001). In 1912-13, Australian explorer Douglas Mawson was the first to revisit the east Antarctic shores mapped by the Vincennes. Pleovice zircon - A new natural reference material for U-Pb and Hf isotopic microanalysis. Retreat history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet since the Last Glacial Maximum. Boger, S. D. Antarctica - Before and after Gondwana. Chemical Geology 424, 3050, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2015.12.019 (2016). This connection allows the Madura Province to continue across the Mundrabilla-Frost Shear Zone in Australia and resolves the geometry of Coompana and Madura provinces and the conjugate Banzare and Nuyina provinces before and after strike-slip motion in their Rodinia (c. 11301040Ma) and Gondwana (c. 160Ma) configurations. (Though the 1804-06 expedition of Lewis and Clark was, granted, a major expedition, it was entirely land-based and mostly within the confines of the United States.) In the decade following the 2008 global recession, funding for the Office of Polar Programs, which oversees American facilities and research in Antarctica, fell by 8 percent. Abbreviations are: LtLithic fragment; QmQuartz monocrystalline. The well-resolved 208Pb/232Th ages obtained confirm instead minor disturbance of the Pb/Th systems and provide more reasonable age estimates. The Wilkes Expedition and the Discovery of Antarctica 1a), as well as Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks of the Beardmore Group in the Transantarctic Mountains36. Google Scholar. Wilkes was seen to be strategically located because of its proximity to the south magnetic pole. [5] In 2022, it was included in an extensive assessment of tipping points in the climate system published in the Science Magazine, where it was grouped alongside several other subglacial basins like the nearby Aurora Basin. The size fraction of the analysed zircons ranges from ~40120m. Zircon grains extracted from this sample are 100250m long and equant to elongate, with aspect ratios from 1:14:1 (Fig. Chemical Geology 249, 135, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2007.11.005 (2008). . Grains were mounted in 25-mm diameter epoxy discs. The intervening region (West Mawson Craton of Aitken et al.11), underlying most of the combined Vanderford-Totten-MUIS continental ice sheet, is only characterised by sparse legacy geological data12,13 and remains vastly underexplored. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Repstat was commissioned in 1969 and Wilkes was closed. & Woods, M. A. Australian Geological Provinces, 2018.01 edition [Digital Dataset]. Our results reveal significant sediment accumulation in Antarctica with several types of . Years ago, countries were driven by national and personal prestige in attaining Earths poles, territorial acquisition, and scientific discovery. & Martin, E. L. Indian-derived sediments deposited in Australia during Gondwana assembly. Sabrina Land: 11533' E to 12205' E History of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, History of Australias Antarctic buildings, Australian Antarctic Division Science Symposium, RSV Nuyina Australias Antarctic icebreaker. To reconstruct the configuration of these provinces prior to this motion, we link the Southard Fault with a major NE-trending structure identified in aeromagnetic data by Aitken et al.11, which we suggest may represent the conjugate boundary between the Coompana and Madura provinces in Australia (Fig. Scratching the Surface: A Marine Sediment Provenance Record From the 1a). The region is almost entirely covered by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), averaging from 6,000 to 9,500 feet (1,800 to 2,900 metres) above sea level. The Chick Island granodiorite pluton (sample CI-814A2) has a crystallisation age of c. 1148Ma and Hfi isotopic values consistent with the emplacement age and Hf signature of the Moodini Supersuite in the Coompana and Madura provinces14, as well as isotopically-similar igneous rocks found in the Wilkes Province (e.g. We suggest that the presence of high-amplitude magnetic anomalies associated with UndawidgiToolgana and Moodini supersuites exclusively south of this lineament fingerprints a Coompana-type basement complex. Published online by Cambridge University Press: However, Magsat, rsted, and CHAMP satellite magnetic observations reveal the thinned crust of the impact . No confirmed sightings of the 7th continent had been made even though the ancient Greeks had proposed the existence of a southern landmass to balance the land north of the equator. 5) indicates post-depositional interaction with hydrothermal fluids. Wilkes Land in East Antarctica remains one of the last geological exploration frontiers on Earth. Correlations of the Coompana/Madura and Banzare/Nuyina provinces across Australia-Antarctica are offset by approximately 330km sinistral strike-slip motion along the Mundrabilla-Frost Shear Zone (Fig. However, UPb dating of detrital zircon and in-situ authigenic monazite constrain a much older Neoproterozoic (c. 1038633Ma) depositional age range for at least part of the basin. As Wilkes had originally been built as a temporary station, rapid deterioration occurred in the extreme Antarctic environment. Southern Ocean warming and Wilkes Land ice sheet retreat - Nature We have analyzed the most recent gravity field model tailored for Antarctica. A subset of the grains contain low-CL domains that are typically unzoned (e.g. It therefore remains unclear whether the Neoproterozoic Sabina Basin formed an Antarctic extension of the larger Centralian Superbasin or constitutes a different Neoproterozoic Antarctic basin sharing provenance similarities with the Officer Basin. As the last continent to be discovered, attention turned increasingly towards exploring continental interiors and exploiting the wealth found there. Hartnady, M. I. H., Kirkland, C. L., Dutch, R. I., Bodorkos, S. & Jagodzinski, E. A. Zircon Hf isotopic signatures of the Coompana Province in South Australia. After WWII Admiral Byrd led Operation Highjump to Antarctica. Accordingly, we interpret this c. 1154Ma population in the xenoliths to date cognate inclusions. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46612-y, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46612-y.