Mount Takahe

Coordinates: 76°17′S 112°05′W / 76.28°S 112.08°W / -76.28; -112.08 (Mount Takahe)
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Mount Takahe
Aerial view looking east. The prominent ridge at the center-left with the shadow behind is Gill Bluff.
Highest point
Elevation3,460 m (11,350 ft)[1]
Prominence2,144 m (7,034 ft) Edit this on Wikidata[2][3]
ListingVolcanoes in Antarctica
Coordinates76°17′S 112°05′W / 76.28°S 112.08°W / -76.28; -112.08 (Mount Takahe)[1]
Geography
Mount Takahe is located in Antarctica
Mount Takahe
Mount Takahe
Location in SW Antarctica
ContinentAntarctica
RegionMarie Byrd Land,
Geology
Mountain typeShield volcano
Volcanic fieldMarie Byrd Land Volcanic Province
Last eruption5550 BC (?)[1]

Mount Takahe is a 3,460-metre-high (11,350 ft) snow-covered

lava flows, but hyaloclastite is also found. Snow, ice, and glaciers cover most of Mount Takahe. With a volume of 780 km3 (200 cu mi), it is a massive volcano; the parts of the edifice that are buried underneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are probably even larger. It is part of the West Antarctic Rift System
along with eighteen other known volcanoes.

The volcano was active in the

ozone hole over Antarctica—and in the early Holocene.[b]
Mount Takahe's last eruption occurred about 7,600 years ago, and there is no present-day activity.

Geography and geomorphology

The mountain's name refers to the takahē, a flightless nearly extinct bird from New Zealand; members of the 1957–1958 Marie Byrd Land Traverse party nicknamed an aircraft that had resupplied them "takahe".[5] It was first visited in 1957–1958 and again in 1968,[6] 1984–1985 and 1998–1999.[7]

Mount Takahe is at the

Antarctic stations pass close to the mountain,[13] and some parts of the cone are accessible only by helicopter.[14]

The volcanic mountain rises 2,100 metres (6,900 ft) above the ice level

Jaron Cliffs are found on the southern slope.[25]

Cliffs on the lower part of the volcano

The volcano is largely uneroded, mostly hiding the internal structure which would clarify its history.

Bucher Rim.[36] Tuyas have been reported.[37]

Glaciation

Mount Takahe is almost entirely covered by ice of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet,[31] which rises about 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) above sea level.[11] A tributary of the Thwaites Glacier passes close by.[38] There are two small glaciers on the volcano itself, on the southwestern and northern flanks.[11] They are eroding eruption products from the summit area,[35] and moraines have been mapped both on the western flank and in the summit caldera.[29] Glacial erosion is slight, with only a few corries cut into the lower slopes.[39] The ice cover on the mountain includes both snow-covered and ice-covered areas,[40] with sastrugi and other wind-roughened surfaces.[41] The cold dry polar environment retards weathering.[14] Air temperatures are usually below freezing.[41]

Some rock units at the foot of the volcano were emplaced underneath ice or water

parasitic vents entered the ice, generating meltwater lakes around them.[43] They crop out at the base of the volcano and are well preserved.[44] Ice elevation was not stable during the emplacement of these deltas, and meltwater drained away, leading to the formation of diverse structures within the hyaloclastite deltas.[45] The deltas may have formed during ice highstands 66,000 and 22,000–15,000 years ago.[46]

Geology

The West Antarctic Rift System is a

seismic activity. Most of the Rift lies below sea level.[50] To the south it is flanked by the Transantarctic Mountains and to the north by the volcanic province of Marie Byrd Land. Volcanic activity in Marie Byrd Land commenced about 34 million years ago, but high activity began 14 million years ago.[51] A major uplifted dome, 1,200 by 500 kilometres (750 mi × 310 mi) in width, is centred on the Amundsen Sea coast and is associated with the Rift.[52]

Topographic map of Mount Takahe

About 18 central volcanoes were active in Marie Byrd Land from the Miocene[f] to the Holocene.[15] Among the volcanic areas in Marie Byrd Land are the Flood Range with Mount Berlin, the Ames Range, the Executive Committee Range with Mount Sidley and Mount Waesche, the Crary Mountains, Toney Mountain, Mount Takahe and Mount Murphy.[53] These volcanoes mainly occur in groups or chains,[51] but there also are isolated edifices.[47] Mount Takahe is located in the eastern Marie Byrd Land volcanic province[7] and with an estimated volume of 5,520 cubic kilometres (1,320 cu mi)[g][55] could be the largest of the Marie Byrd Land volcanoes, comparable to Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.[56]

Most of these volcanoes are large, capped off by a summit caldera and appear to have begun as fast-growing shield volcanoes. Later, calderas formed. Eventually, late in the history of the volcanoes parasitic vents were active.[15] The volcanoes are all surmounted by rocks composed of trachyte, phonolite, pantellerite, or comendite.[57] Their activity has been attributed either to the reactivation of crustal structures or to the presence of a mantle plume.[48] The volcanoes rise from a Paleozoic basement.[51]

Mount Takahe may feature a large

heat flow anomaly has been found.[59] A magnetic anomaly has also been linked to the mountain.[60]

Composition

Trachyte is the most common rock on Mount Takahe, phonolite being less common. Basanite, hawaiite, and mugearite are uncommon,[29] but the occurrence of benmoreite[17] and pantellerite has been reported,[22] and some rocks have been classified as andesites.[61] Hawaiite occurs exclusively in the older outcrops, basanite only in parasitic vents[25] and mugearite only on the lower sector of the volcano.[62] Despite this, most of the volcano is believed to consist of mafic rocks with only about 10–15% of felsic rocks,[63] as the upper visible portion of the volcano could be resting on a much larger buried base. The parasitic vents probably make up less than 1% of the edifice.[10] Ice-lava interactions produced hyaloclastite, palagonite and sideromelane.[11] No major changes in magma chemistry occurred during the last 40,000 years[64] but some variation has been recorded.[65]

All these rocks appear to have a common origin and define an alkaline[29]–peralkaline suite.[66] Phenocrysts include mainly plagioclase, with less common olivine and titanomagnetite;[67] apatite has been reported as well.[61] The magmas appear to have formed through fractional crystallization at varying pressures,[68] and ultimately came from the lithosphere at 80–90-kilometre (50–56 mi) depth,[69] that was affected by subduction processes[70] over 85 million years ago.[6]

Eruption history

The volcano was active in the late

K-Ar dates,[5] but in a 2016 review of dates for Mount Takahe LeMasurier reported that none were older than 192,000 years.[72] A 2013 paper also by LeMasurier reported maximum ages of 192,000 years for caldera rim rocks and of 66,000 years for lower flank rocks.[22] The entire volcano may have formed in less than 400,000 years[73] or even less than 200,000 years, which would imply rapid growth of the edifice.[22] Rocks aged 192,000±6,300 years old are found at the summit caldera, implying that the volcano had reached its present-day height by then.[74]

Early research indicated that most of Mount Takahe formed underneath the ice, but more detailed field studies concluded that most of the volcano developed above the ice surface.

tuff cones formed during the late stage of activity.[1]

Tephra in ice cores

Tephra layers in ice cores drilled at Byrd Station have been attributed to Mount Takahe.[79] The volcano reaches an altitude high enough that tephras erupted from it can readily penetrate the tropopause and spread over Antarctica through the stratosphere.[80] The occurrence of several volcanic eruptions in the region about 30,000 years ago has been suggested to have caused a cooling of the climate of Antarctica,[81] but it is also possible that the growth of the ice sheets at that time squeezed magma chambers at Mount Takahe and thus induced an increase of the eruptive activity.[82]

Assuming that most tephra layers at Byrd come from Mount Takahe, it has been inferred that the volcano was very active between 60,000 and 7,500 years ago, with nine eruptive periods and two pulses between 60,000 and 57,000 and 40,000–14,000 years ago. In the latter part of the latter period hydrovolcanic eruptions became dominant at Mount Takahe, with a maximum around the time when the Wisconsin glaciation ended.[78] It is possible that between 18,000 and 15,000 years ago, either a crater lake formed in the caldera or the vents were buried by snow and ice. The caldera itself might have formed between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago, probably not through a large explosive eruption.[64]

It cannot be entirely ruled out that Byrd Station tephras originate at other volcanoes of Marie Byrd Land[83] such as Mount Berlin. In particular, tephra layers between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago have been attributed to the latter volcano.[84][85]

Tephra layers from Mount Takahe have also been found at

sediment cores taken from the sea.[91] Volcanic eruptions at Mount Takahe lack the pyroclastic flow deposits observed in other large explosive eruptions.[14] The thickness of the Byrd ice core tephras attributed to Mount Takahe suggested that the eruptions were not large,[83] but later research has indicated that large Plinian eruptions also occurred.[92]

A series of eruptions about 200 years long took place at Mount Takahe 17,700 years ago.

UV radiation in the atmosphere did increase at that time in Antarctica.[95] As is the case with the present-day ozone hole, the ozone hole created by the Takahe eruptions might have altered the Antarctic climate and sped up deglaciation, which was accelerating at that time,[96] but later research has determined that the warming was most likely not volcanically forced.[97]

Holocene and recent activity

Activity waned after this point, two hydromagmatic eruptions being recorded 13,000 and 9,000 years ago and a magmatic eruption 7,500 years ago.

AD may come from this volcano as well.[106]

The Global Volcanism Program reports 5550 BC as the date of the last known eruption,

Seismic activity recorded at 9–19 kilometres (5.6–11.8 mi) depth around the volcano may be linked to its activity.[110] Mount Takahe has been prospected for the possibility of obtaining geothermal energy.[58]

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Named features

Named features of the mountain, clockwise from the north, include Clausen Glacier, Knezevich Rock, Stauffer Bluff, Oeschger Bluff, Bucher Rim, Jaron Cliffs, Möll Spur, Steuri Glacier, Cadenazzi Rock, Roper Point and Gill Bluff.[111]

Feature Coordinates Description
Clausen Glacier 76°10′S 112°03′W / 76.167°S 112.050°W / -76.167; -112.050 (Clausen Glacier) A narrow glacier draining northward from the summit of Mount Takahe. The terminus of the glacier is just west of Knezevich Rock. It was mapped by the
United States Antarctic Research Program (USARP) glaciologist at Byrd Station, 1969–70.[112]
Knezevich Rock 76°10′S 112°00′W / 76.167°S 112.000°W / -76.167; -112.000 (Knezevich Rock). A rock outcrop on the lower part of the north slope of Mount Takahe. It lies at the east side of the mouth of Clausen Glacier. It was mapped by the USGS from surveys and United States Navy aerial photography, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Nick Knezevich Jr., United States Navy, electronics technician at South Pole Station, 1974.[113]
Stauffer Bluff 76°10′S 111°46′W / 76.167°S 111.767°W / -76.167; -111.767 (Stauffer Bluff). A rocky bluff at the northeast extremity of Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from surveys and United States Navy tricamera aerial potographs, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Bernhard Stauffer (University of Bern, Switzerland), USARP glaciologist at Byrd Station, 1968–69 and 1969–70.[114]
Oeschger Bluff 76°24′S 111°48′W / 76.400°S 111.800°W / -76.400; -111.800 (Oeschger Bluff). A flat-topped snow and rock bluff that projects from the southeast part of Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from surveys and United States Navy tricamera aerial photography, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Hans Oeschger (University of Bern, Switzerland), USARP glaciologist at Byrd Station, 1968–69 and 1969–70.[115]
Bucher Rim 76°19′S 112°00′W / 76.317°S 112.000°W / -76.317; -112.000 (Bucher Rim) A rocky eminence on the south portion of the rim of the extinct volcano Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from surveys and United States Navy tricamera aerial potographs, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Peter Bucher (University of Bern, Switzerland), USARP glaciologist at Byrd Station, 1969–70.[116]
Jaron Cliffs 76°23′S 112°10′W / 76.383°S 112.167°W / -76.383; -112.167 (Jaron Cliffs). A line of steep, snow-covered cliffs on the south side of Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from ground surveys and United States Navy air potographs, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Helmut P. Jaron, aurora researcher at Byrd Station in 1963.[117]
Möll Spur 76°23′S 112°09′W / 76.383°S 112.150°W / -76.383; -112.150 (Möll Spur). A jagged rock spur which juts southward from Jaron Cliffs on the southern slope of Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from surveys and United States Navy tricamera aerial potographs, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Markus Moll (University of Bern, Switzerland), USARP glaciologist at Byrd Station, 1969–70.[118]
Steuri Glacier 76°23′S 112°24′W / 76.383°S 112.400°W / -76.383; -112.400 (Steuri Glacier). A glacier descending the southern slopes of Mount Takahe. The feature is 3.5 nautical miles (6.5 km; 4.0 mi) west of Moll Spur. It was mapped by the USGS from surveys and United States Navy aerial photography, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Heinrich Steuri (University of Bern, Switzerland), USARP glaciologist at Byrd Station, 1968–69.[119]
Cadenazzi Rock 76°18′S 112°39′W / 76.300°S 112.650°W / -76.300; -112.650 (Cadenazzi Rock). A rock outcrop 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km; 1.7 mi) east of Roper Point on the west slope of Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from surveys and United States Navy tricamera aerial potographs, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Lieutenant Michael P. Cadenazzi, United States Navy, LH-34 helicopter commander. He flew close support missions for USARP scientists during the 1969–70 and 1970–71 seasons.[120]
Roper Point 76°19′S 112°54′W / 76.317°S 112.900°W / -76.317; -112.900 (Roper Point). A largely ice-covered point, but with some rock exposures, at the west extremity of Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from ground surveys and United States Navy air potographs, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Nathaniel A. Roper, aurora researcher at Byrd Station in 1963.[121]
Gill Bluff 76°14′S 112°33′W / 76.233°S 112.550°W / -76.233; -112.550 (Gill Bluff). A rock bluff on the northwest side of Mount Takahe. It was mapped by the USGS from ground surveys and United States Navy air potographs, 1959–66. It was named by the US-ACAN for Allan Gill, aurora researcher at Byrd Station in 1963.[122]
Helmut P. Jaron, for whom the Jaron Cliffs are named.

See also

  • List of Ultras of Antarctica

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ From 2.58 million years ago to present.[4]
  2. ^ The Holocene began 11,700 years ago and continues to the present day.[4]
  3. ^ Alternative heights of 3,398 metres (11,148 ft)[18] or 3,390 metres (11,120 ft) have also been reported.[19] The initial measurements and airborne measurements of Mount Takahe's height have discrepancies of as much as 103 metres (338 ft).[20]
  4. aurora researcher at Byrd Station in 1963.[30]
  5. ^ Between 251.902 ± 0.024 and 66 million years ago.[4]
  6. ^ From 23.03 million years ago to 5.333 million years ago.[4]
  7. ^ Of which 780 cubic kilometres (190 cu mi) risee above the surrounding ice.[54]
  8. ^ A tephra layer emplaced at Siple Dome 19,700 years ago has been correlated to eruptions at Takahe.[90]

References

Citations

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  2. ^ "Antarctica Ultra-Prominences" Peaklist.org. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  3. ^ "Mount Takahe, Antarctica" Peakbagger.com. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  4. ^ a b c d "International Chronostratigraphic Chart" (PDF). International Commission on Stratigraphy. August 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 July 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d LeMasurier et al. 1990, p. 174.
  6. ^ a b LeMasurier et al. 2018, p. 148.
  7. ^ a b Wilch, McIntosh & Panter 2021, p. 519.
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  112. ^ Alberts 1995, p. 139.
  113. ^ Alberts 1995, p. 398.
  114. ^ Alberts 1995, p. 709.
  115. ^ Alberts 1995, p. 540.
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Sources

External links

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