Landscape evolution, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Transantarctic Mountains

I have been working with George Denton (Maine), David Marchant (Boston) and others, to use geomorphology to help reconstruct the landscape evolution of the Dry Valleys area.

<--Shakleton Glacier, Dry Valleys

Highlights include discovery of the world’s longest record of landscape evolution, preserved in the landscape because of excessively slow rates of erosion since the mid-Miocene some 14 million years ago. The case is argued in three papers focusing on the three mountain blocks of the Dry Valleys, Royal Society Range and Convoy Range. The latest paper also synthesises the integrated land record with that obtained from the Cape Roberts and CIROS-1 cores immediately offshore.

The main papers are:

• Sugden, D.E., Denton, G.H., Marchant, D.R., 1995 Landscape evolution of the Dry Valleys, Transantarctic Mountains; Tectonic implications. J. Geophysical Research 100, B7, 9949-9967


• Sugden, D.E., Summerfield, M.A., Denton, G.H., Wilch, T.I., McIntosh, W.C., Marchant, D.R. and Rutford, R.H., 1999 Landscape development in the Royal Society Range, southern Victoria Land, Antarctica: stability since the mid-Miocene, Geomorphology 28, 181-200


• Sugden, D. E. and Denton, G.H., 2004, Cenozoic landscape evolution of the Convoy Range to Mackay glacier area, Transantarctic Mountains: onshore to offshore synthesis. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 116, 840-857 [view abstract].