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"Dry valleys" redirects here. For other uses, see dry valley
Dry valley

A dry valley is a valley found in either Karst or chalk terrain that no longer has a surface flow of water. There are many examples of the latter along the North Downs and South Downs in southern England....


The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of valley
Valley

In geology, a valley is a Depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge....
s in Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
 located within Victoria Land
Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Sea and on the west by Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the Victoria of the United Kingdom....
 west of McMurdo Sound
McMurdo Sound

The ice-clogged waters of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound extend about 55 km long and wide. The sound encompasses 2,500 miles of shoreline which opens to the Ross Sea to the north....
. The region includes many interesting geological features including Lake Vida
Lake Vida

Lake Vida lies in Victoria Valley, the northernmost of the large McMurdo Dry Valleys, on the continent of Antarctica. It is isolated under year-round ice cover, and considerably more salinity than seawater....
 and the Onyx River
Onyx River

The Onyx River is a meltwater stream which flows westward through the Wright Valley from Wright Lower Glacier and Lake Brownworth at the foot of the glacier to Lake Vanda, during a few months of the Antarctica summer....
, Antarctica's longest river. It is also one of the world's most extreme desert
Désert

?D?sert? is ?milie Simon's debut single, released in October 2002. The song was a huge success both critically and commercially in her homeland....
s.

Dry Valleys are so named because of their extremely low humidity
Humidity

Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. In daily language the term "humidity" is normally taken to mean relative humidity. Relative humidity is defined as the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor in a Air parcel of air to the saturated vapor pressure of water vapor at a prescribed temperature....
 and their lack of snow or ice cover.






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Encyclopedia


"Dry valleys" redirects here. For other uses, see dry valley
Dry valley

A dry valley is a valley found in either Karst or chalk terrain that no longer has a surface flow of water. There are many examples of the latter along the North Downs and South Downs in southern England....


The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of valley
Valley

In geology, a valley is a Depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge....
s in Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
 located within Victoria Land
Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Sea and on the west by Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the Victoria of the United Kingdom....
 west of McMurdo Sound
McMurdo Sound

The ice-clogged waters of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound extend about 55 km long and wide. The sound encompasses 2,500 miles of shoreline which opens to the Ross Sea to the north....
. The region includes many interesting geological features including Lake Vida
Lake Vida

Lake Vida lies in Victoria Valley, the northernmost of the large McMurdo Dry Valleys, on the continent of Antarctica. It is isolated under year-round ice cover, and considerably more salinity than seawater....
 and the Onyx River
Onyx River

The Onyx River is a meltwater stream which flows westward through the Wright Valley from Wright Lower Glacier and Lake Brownworth at the foot of the glacier to Lake Vanda, during a few months of the Antarctica summer....
, Antarctica's longest river. It is also one of the world's most extreme desert
Désert

?D?sert? is ?milie Simon's debut single, released in October 2002. The song was a huge success both critically and commercially in her homeland....
s.

Climate

The Dry Valleys are so named because of their extremely low humidity
Humidity

Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. In daily language the term "humidity" is normally taken to mean relative humidity. Relative humidity is defined as the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor in a Air parcel of air to the saturated vapor pressure of water vapor at a prescribed temperature....
 and their lack of snow or ice cover. Together, at 4800 square kilometers, they constitute around 0.03 % of the continent, and form the largest relatively ice-free region in Antarctica. The valley floors are covered with a loose gravel
Gravel

Gravel is rock that is of a specific particle size range. Specifically, it is is any loose rock that is larger than two millimeters in its largest dimension and no more than 64 millimeters ....
ly material, in which ice-wedge polygon
Ice wedge

An ice wedge is a crack in the ground formed by a narrow or thin piece of ice that measures anywhere from 3 to 4 meters wide and extends downwards into the ground up to 10 inches....
s may be observed.

The unique conditions in the Dry Valleys are caused by katabatic wind
Katabatic wind

File:Katabatic-wind hg.pngFile:Antarctic shelf ice hg.pngFile:Vent catabatique - Catabatic Wind.jpgFile:Sea ice by fruchtzwerg's world.jpgA katabatic wind, from the Greek language word katabatic meaning "going downhill", is the technical name for a drainage wind, a wind that carries high density air from a higher elevation down a slo...
s (from the Greek word for 'going down'). These occur when cold, dense air is pulled downhill simply by the force of gravity. The winds can reach speeds of 320 km/h (200 mph) evaporating all moisture - water, ice and snow - in the process.

Geology

The valleys cut through the Beacon sandstone
Beacon sandstone

The Beacon sandstone is a geological formation exposed in Antarctica and deposited from the Devonian to the Triassic . The sandstone was originally described as a formation, and upgraded to group and supergroup as time passed....
. The gravel appears to be derived from two sources. The first is terminal moraine
Terminal moraine

A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a moraine that forms at the end of the glacier called the snout.Terminal moraines mark the maximum advance of the glacier....
s which have formed at the end of glaciers which descend into the Dry Valleys. These glaciers sublime directly to air, for the most part, adding very little liquid water to the valleys. The second potential source of gravel is a rather unusual source. It is believed that during some glacial periods, the quantity of ice in the nearby Ross Sea
Ross Sea

The Ross Sea is a deep Headlands and bays of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land. It was discovered by James Clark Ross in 1841....
 was so great that it forced its way inland into some of the Dry Valleys, in a kind of reverse glacier and deposited its own terminal moraine.

Biota

Endolith
Endolith

An endolith is an organism that lives inside Rock , coral, animal shells, or in the Porositys between mineral grains of a rock. Many are extremophiles; living in places previously thought inhospitable to life....
ic photosynthetic
Photosynthesis

File:Seawifs global biosphere.jpgPhotosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight....
 bacteria have been found living in the Dry Valleys, sheltered from the dry air in the relatively moist interior of rocks. Summer meltwater from the Valleys' overhanging glacier
Glacier

A glacier is a large, slow-moving mass of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity and high pressure....
s provides the primary source of soil nutrients. Scientists consider the Dry Valleys perhaps the closest of any terrestrial environment to Mars
MARS

In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
, and thus an important source of insights into possible extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life

Extraterrestrial life is defined as life which does not originate from Earth. It is the subject of astrobiology and its existence remains hypothetical, because there is no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life which has been generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community....
.

Part of the Valleys was designated an environmentally protected area in 2004.

Major geographic features


Valleys

  • Alatna Valley
    Alatna Valley

    Alatna Valley, is an ice-free valley lying 4 miles north of Mount Gran and trending east-northeast for about 10 miles along the southeast side of the Convoy Range....
     (sometimes incorrectly spelled Atlanta Valley is the northernmost, north of Benson Glacier.


From north to south, the three main valleys are
  • Victoria Valley
    Victoria Valley

    Victoria Valley is one of the larger McMurdo Dry Valleys. Lake Vida is the largest lake of the valley. The Victoria River drains the Upper Victoria Glacier, with Upper Victoria Lake just below it and seven kilometers northwest of Lake Vida, into Vida Lake on its western side....
     (between St. Johns Range in the north and Olympus Range in the south)
  • Wright Valley
    Wright Valley

    The Wright Valley is the central one of the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, located west of McMurdo Sound at approximately ....
     (between Olympus Range in the north and Asgard Range
    Asgard Range

    Asgard Range is a mountain range dividing Wright Valley from Taylor Glacier and Taylor Valley, in Victoria Land. It was named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition after the home of the Norse gods....
     in the south)
  • Taylor Valley
    Taylor Valley

    Taylor Valley is the southern one of the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, located west of McMurdo Sound at approximately ....
     (between Asgard Range
    Asgard Range

    Asgard Range is a mountain range dividing Wright Valley from Taylor Glacier and Taylor Valley, in Victoria Land. It was named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition after the home of the Norse gods....
     in the north and Kukri Hills in the south)


West of Victoria Valley are, from north to south,
  • Barwick Valley
  • Balham Valley
  • McKelvey Valley
    McKelvey Valley

    McKelvey Valley is a valley between the western part of the Olympus Range and the Insel Range, in Victoria Land. It was named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition for B.C....


Stretching south from Balham Valley are, from west to east:
  • Priscu Valley
    Priscu Valley

    Priscu Valley is an upland ice-free valley on the east side of Prentice Plateau in Olympus Range. The valley opens north to the head of McKelvey Valley....
  • Wall Valley
  • Virginia Valley
  • Stuiver Valley


West of Taylor Valley is
  • Pearse Valley (sometimes incorrectly spelled Pearce Valley).


Further south, between Royal Society Range
Royal Society Range

Royal Society Range is a majestic mountain range rising to 4,025 meters at its highest point, Mount Lister, along the western shore of McMurdo Sound between the Koettlitz Glacier, Skelton Glacier and Ferrar Glacier glaciers....
 in the west and the west coast of McMurdo Sound
McMurdo Sound

The ice-clogged waters of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound extend about 55 km long and wide. The sound encompasses 2,500 miles of shoreline which opens to the Ross Sea to the north....
 at the lobe of Koettlitz Glacier
Koettlitz Glacier

The Koettlitz Glacier is a large Antarctica glacier lying west of Mount Morning and Mount Discovery, flowing from the vicinity of Mount Cocks northeastward between Brown Peninsula and the mainland into the ice shelf of McMurdo Sound....
 are, from north to south:
  • Garwood Valley
  • Marshall Valley
  • Miers Valley
    Miers Valley

    Miers Valley is a valley just south of Marshall Valley and west of Koettlitz Glacier, on the coast of Victoria Land. The valley is ice-free in the Austral summer except for Miers Glacier and Adams Glacier in its upper part, and Lake Miers near its center....


Lakes

Some of the lakes of the Dry Valleys rank among the world's most saline lakes, with a higher salinity than Lake Assal (Djibouti) or the Dead Sea
Dead Sea

For the Brian Keene book of the same name, see Dead Sea The Dead Sea is a salt lake between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east....
. The most saline of all is small Don Juan Pond
Don Juan Pond

Don Juan Pond, also called Lake Don Juan, is a small and very shallow Salinity#Systems of classification of water bodies based upon salinity lake in the west end of Wright Valley , Victoria Land, Antarctica, 9 km west from Lake Vanda....
.

  • Lake Vida
    Lake Vida

    Lake Vida lies in Victoria Valley, the northernmost of the large McMurdo Dry Valleys, on the continent of Antarctica. It is isolated under year-round ice cover, and considerably more salinity than seawater....
     (Victoria Valley)


  • Lake Vanda
    Lake Vanda

    Lake Vanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is 5 km long and has a maximum depth of 69 m....
     (Wright Valley)
  • Lake Brownworth
    Lake Brownworth

    Lake Brownworth is a meltwater lake immediately west of Wright Lower Glacier at the east end of Wright Valley, Victoria Land. The lake was mapped by United States Geological Survey from surveys and air photos obtained in 1956-60....
     (Wright Valley) (freshwater)
  • Don Juan Pond
    Don Juan Pond

    Don Juan Pond, also called Lake Don Juan, is a small and very shallow Salinity#Systems of classification of water bodies based upon salinity lake in the west end of Wright Valley , Victoria Land, Antarctica, 9 km west from Lake Vanda....
     (Wright Valley)


  • Lake Fryxell
    Lake Fryxell

    Lake Fryxell is a lake 4.5 km long, between Canada Glacier and Commonwealth Glaciers at the lower end of Taylor Valley in Victoria Land, Antarctica....
     (Taylor Valley)
  • Lake Hoare
    Lake Hoare

    Lake Hoare is a lake about 4.2 km long between Lake Chad and Canada Glacier in Taylor Valley, Victoria Land. Its surface area measures 1.94 km? ....
     (Taylor Valley)
  • Lake Chad
    Lake Chad (Antarctica)

    Lake Chad is a small lake lying east of the month of Suess Glacier in the Taylor Valley of Victoria Land. Charted and named by the British Antarctic Expedition under Scott, 1910-13, after the African lake Lake Chad....
     (Taylor Valley)
  • Dirty Little Hoare Pond (Taylor Valley)
  • Parera Pond (Taylor Valley) (freshwater)
  • Lake Bonney
    Lake Bonney (Antarctica)

    Lake Bonney is a saline lake with permanent ice cover at the western end of Taylor Valley in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Victoria Land, Antarctica....
     (Taylor Valley)


  • Lake House (Pearse Valley)
  • Lake Joyce (Pearse Valley)


  • Lake Garwood (Garwood Valley)
  • Lake Miers (Miers Valley)


Rivers

  • Kite Stream (Victoria Valley)
  • Onyx River
    Onyx River

    The Onyx River is a meltwater stream which flows westward through the Wright Valley from Wright Lower Glacier and Lake Brownworth at the foot of the glacier to Lake Vanda, during a few months of the Antarctica summer....
     (Wright Valley]
  • Vincent Creek (Taylor Valley)
  • Crescent Stream (Taylor Valley)
  • Harnish Creek (Taylor Valley)
  • Huey Creek
    Huey Creek

    Huey Creek is a glacial meltwater stream, 1.2 nautical miles long, flowing south from an ice field west of Mount Falconer to the north-central shore of Lake Fryxell, in Taylor Valley, Victoria Land....
     (Taylor Valley)


See also

  • John Charles Priscu
    John Charles Priscu

    John C. Priscu is a Romanian-American scientist who is the current Professor of Ecology in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Montana-Missoula....


External links

  • (USGS
    United States Geological Survey

    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....
    )
  • , Antarctic Sun, January 26 2003
  • - The New York Times/International Herald Tribune, November 2006