Patagonia is a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south.
Mylodon is a genus of extinct ground sloth belonging to the family Mylodontidae, known from the Pampas and Patagonia in Chile and Argentina in southern South America. With a total length of 3 to 4 m, it is one of the best-known and largest representatives of the group. The oldest finds probably date to the Lower Pleistocene; however, most of the fossil remains date from the Upper Pleistocene period. One of the most important sites of this phase is the Cueva del Milodón in southern Chile. Shortly after, about 10,200 BP, Mylodon became extinct. At this point in time, it coexisted with the first human colonists in America.
Los Glaciares National Park is a federal protected area in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.
A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption. A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow crater lake, which may also be called a maar.
Viedma is a subglacial volcano whose existence is questionable. It is supposedly located below the ice of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, an area disputed between Argentina and Chile. The 1988 eruption deposited ash and pumice on the ice field and produced a mudflow that reached Viedma Lake. The exact position of the edifice is unclear, both owing to the ice cover and because the candidate position, the "Viedma Nunatak", does not clearly appear to be of volcanic nature.
Cueva de las Manos is a cave and complex of rock art sites in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km (101 mi) south of the town of Perito Moreno. It is named for the hundreds of paintings of hands stenciled, in multiple collages, on the rock walls. The art was created in several waves between 7,300 BC and 700 AD, during the Archaic period of pre-Columbian South America. The age of the paintings was calculated from the remains of bone pipes used for spraying the paint on the wall of the cave to create the artwork, radiocarbon dating of the artwork, and stratigraphic dating.
The Pinturas River Canyon is a canyon located 160 km from the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz, Argentina. It is home to the Pinturas River, which carved the canyon through eroding the Chon Aike Formation. Native populations inhabited the region, painting many works of rock art, some of which can still be seen today. The most famous of these rock art sites is the Cueva de las Manos, a cave site with ancient art whose creation dates back up to 13,000 years ago. This rock art, and Cueva de las Manos in particular, brings lots of tourism to the canyon.
The Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes is a World Heritage Site in South Korea. It was inscribed as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2007 because of the Geomunoreum Lava Tube System and the exhibition of diverse and accessible volcanic features which are considered to demonstrate a distinctive and valuable contribution to the understanding of global volcanism.
Aguilera is a stratovolcano in southern Chile, which rises above the edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. It is a remote volcano that was identified as such in 1985, but the first ascent only occurred in 2014, making it the last unclimbed major Andean volcano.
The Patagonian Desert, also known as the Patagonian Steppe, is the largest desert in Argentina and is the 8th largest desert in the world by area, occupying 673,000 square kilometers (260,000 mi2). It is located primarily in Argentina and is bounded by the Andes, to its west, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, in the region of Patagonia, southern Argentina. To the north the desert grades into the Cuyo Region and the Monte. The central parts of the steppe are dominated by shrubby and herbaceous plant species albeit to the west, where precipitation is higher, bushes are replaced by grasses. Topographically the deserts consist of alternating tablelands and massifs dissected by river valleys and canyons. The more western parts of the steppe host lakes of glacial origin and grades into barren mountains or cold temperate forests along valleys.
Reclus, also written as Reclús, is a volcano located in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, Chile. Part of the Austral Volcanic Zone of the Andes, its summit rises 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above sea level and is capped by a crater about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide. Close to the volcano lies the Amalia Glacier, which is actively eroding Reclus.
Cueva Fell or Fell'sCave is a natural cave and archaeological site in southern Patagonia. Cueva Fell is in proximity to the Pali Aike Crater, another significant archaeological site. Cueva Fell combined with the nearby Pali Aike site have been submitted to UNESCO as a possible World Heritage Site.
Ana Lake is a Patagonian lake in the Pali-Aike National Park, San Gregorio, Magallanes Region, Chile.
Panthera onca mesembrina is an extinct subspecies of jaguar that was endemic to Patagonia in southern South America during the late Pleistocene epoch. It is known from several fragmentary specimens, the first of which found was in 1899 at "Cueva del Milodon" in Chile. These fossils were referred to a new genus and species "Iemish listai" by naturalist Santiago Roth, who thought they might be the bones of the mythological iemisch of Tehuelche folklore. A later expedition recovered more bones, including the skull of a large male that was described in detail by Angel Cabrera in 1934. Cabrera created a new name for the giant felid remains, Panthera onca mesembrina, after realizing that its fossils were near-identical to modern jaguars’. P. onca mesembrina's validity is disputed, with some paleontologists suggesting that it is a synonym of Panthera atrox.
Piedra Museo is an archaeological site in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, and one of the earliest known archaeological remains in the Americas.
Monte Burney is a volcano in southern Chile, part of its Austral Volcanic Zone which consists of six volcanoes with activity during the Quaternary. This volcanism is linked to the subduction of the Antarctic Plate beneath the South America Plate and the Scotia Plate.
Fueguino is a volcanic field in Chile. The southernmost volcano in the Andes, it lies on Tierra del Fuego's Cook Island and also extends over nearby Londonderry Island. The field is formed by lava domes, pyroclastic cones, and a crater lake.
The Pali-Aike volcanic field is a volcanic field along the Argentina–Chile border. It is part of a family of back-arc volcanoes in Patagonia, which formed from processes involving the collision of the Chile Ridge with the Peru–Chile Trench. It lies farther east than the Austral Volcanic Zone, the volcanic arc that makes up the Andean Volcanic Belt at this latitude. Pali-Aike formed over sedimentary rock of Magallanes Basin, a Jurassic-age basin starting from the late Miocene as a consequence of regional tectonic events.
Margaret (Peggy) McKelvy Bird was an American socialite and archaeologist who, with her husband and partner Junius Bird, undertook significant international expeditions. She volunteered at the American Museum of Natural History for over 60 years, where she catalogued and managed the collections they had gathered.
