Eternity Range
The Eternity Range is a range of mountains 28 miles long in Palmer Land: the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, in the British Antarctic Territory. The range contains the highest mountain in the territory: Mount Hope, with a summit at 10627 feet. The range is in a ridge trending north-south, approximately in the middle of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Geography
Eternity Range is divided into three main mountain blocks, the major summits in each from north to south being:
- Mount Faith (8,700 feet)
- Mount Hope (10,626 feet)
- Mount Charity (8,800 feet)
These four names were applied by Lincoln Ellsworth who discovered the range from the air during his flights of 21 and 23 November 1935.
Expeditions
The first expedition to discover the range was the aerial exploration of Lincoln Ellsworth, an American polar explorer in November 1935.
In November 1936, the range was surveyed by John Riddoch Rymill of the British Graham Land Expedition who gave the name "Mount Wakefield" to the central mountain in the range. This complication by Rymill, and uncertainty as to the precise location or extent of Ellsworth's discovery, hindered for a time a resolution of its nomenclature (following the U.S. Antarctic Service expedition in 1939–41, the name 'Eternity Range' or 'Eternity Mountains' was incorrectly applied to the present Welch Mountains 60 miles farther south).
A careful study of the original reports, maps and photographs, and comparison with materials from subsequent expeditions such as the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, 1947, and the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, 1960, has led to the conclusion that the range described comprises at least the core of Ellsworth's Eternity Range and appropriately commemorates his discovery. The name "Wakefield", given by Rymill, has been transferred to nearby Wakefield Highland.
See also
- Wakefield Highland: a high plateau to the north of the range
- Brand Peak, ten nautical miles east-southeast of the Eternity Range
References
- Gazetteer and Map of The British Antarctic Territory: Eternity Range
- New satellite imagery reveals new highest Antarctic Peninsula Mountain – British Antarctic Survey, 11 December 2017</ref>