Mount Usborne
| Mount Usborne | |||
| Falkland Islands | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Range: | Wickham Heights | ||
| East Falkland | |||
| Summit: | 2,313 feet 51°41′50″S 58°50′04″W | ||
Mount Usborne is a mountain on East Falkland. At 2,313 feet above sea level, it is the highest point in the Falkland Islands.
Charles Darwin, in Chapter 9 of the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle refers to this mountain and it is named after Alexander Burns Usborne, Master's Assistant on HMS Beagle, the ship which carried Darwin on his famous voyage.
The remains of glacial cirques can also be seen on Mount Usborne. It is only a few yards taller than Mount Adam on West Falkland.
As one of the highest mountains of the Falklands, Mount Usborne experienced some glaciation in colder ages. The handful of mountains over 2,000 feet have:
pronounced corries with small glacial lakes at the their bases, morainic ridges deposited below the corries suggest that the glaciers and ice domes were confined to areas of maximum elevation with other parts of the islands experiencing a periglacial climate" [1]
References
- ↑ Strange, Ian (1983) The Falkland Islands
- Stonehouse, B (ed.) Encyclopedia of Antarctica and the Southern Oceans (2002, ISBN 0 471 9866 58)