McKay Creek is a meltwater stream, 250 m long, heading on Suess Glacier

Suess Glacier

Suess Glacier is a glacier between Canada Glacier and Lacroix Glacier, flowing south into Taylor Valley in Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was charted and named by the British Antarctic Expedition under Scott, 1910–13, for Professor Eduard Suess, noted Austrian geologist and paleontologist....

 west-southwest of the west end of Lake Chad

Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...

 at about 100 m elevation and flowing east-northeast into Lake Chad in Taylor Valley

Taylor Valley

Taylor Valley is the southern one of the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, Victoria Land, located west of McMurdo Sound at approximately . The valley extends from Taylor Glacier in the west to McMurdo Sound at Explorers Cove at the northwest head of New Harbour in the east...

, Victoria Land

Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea and on the west by Oates Land and Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the UK's Queen Victoria...

. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names

Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names

The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending names for features in Antarctica...

 (US-ACAN) in 1996 after Christopher P. McKay, NASA, planetary scientist, who conducted limnological research on Lake Hoare

Lake Hoare

Lake Hoare is a lake about long between Lake Chad and Canada Glacier in Taylor Valley, Victoria Land. Its surface area measures . It was named by the 8th Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition , 1963–64, for physicist R.A...

 from 1982 and pioneered the use of year-round environmental data collection in dry valley

Valley

In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...

ecosystems.