Philippi Rise

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Location of Oscar II Coast on Antarctic Peninsula. Ant-pen-map-Oscar-II.PNG
Location of Oscar II Coast on Antarctic Peninsula.

Philippi Rise ( 66°6′S62°18′W / 66.100°S 62.300°W / -66.100; -62.300 Coordinates: 66°6′S62°18′W / 66.100°S 62.300°W / -66.100; -62.300 ) is a low, snow-covered promontory 7 nautical miles (13 km) wide and extending some 10 nautical miles (18 km) southeast from the east coast of Graham Land. The ice surface is highest in the west, where it rises to about 395 m and is broken by Borchgrevink and Gemini Nunataks. The Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Nordenskjold, 1901–04, reported an ice wall or glacial terrace in the vicinity of Borchgrevink Nunatak. Although unable to determine its nature, Nordenskjold named the feature Philippigletscher, after Emil Philippi. It was determined to be a snow-covered promontory by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) during their 1947 survey of this coast.

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

Graham Land geographical object

Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names, in which the name "Antarctic Peninsula" was approved for the major peninsula of Antarctica, and the names Graham Land and Palmer Land for the northern and southern portions, respectively. The line dividing them is roughly 69 degrees south.

The Gemini Nunataks are two nunataks of similar size and appearance in a prominent position near the west wall of Shackleton Glacier, Antarctica, just southeast of Mount Cole. They were named by F. Alton Wade, leader of the Texas Tech Shackleton Glacier Expedition, 1962–63, after the constellation Gemini, which contains the twin stars Castor and Pollux.

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates  public domain material from the United States Geological Survey document "Philippi Rise" (content from the Geographic Names Information System ).

United States Geological Survey Scientific agency of the United States government

The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility.

Geographic Names Information System geographical database

The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database that contains name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features located throughout the United States of America and its territories. It is a type of gazetteer. GNIS was developed by the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) to promote the standardization of feature names.


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