Vinson Massif

Vinson Massif is a mountain massif in the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica, roughly 1,200 kilometers from the South Pole. It measures about 21 kilometers long and 13 kilometers wide, and its highest point, Mount Vinson, reaches roughly 4,892 meters, the tallest peak on the continent. The massif is built from the Crashsite Group, some 3,000 meters of steeply inclined marine sandstone, quartzite and argillite strata forming the western limb of a large syncline, with the sequence containing Late Cambrian trilobite fossils near its base and Devonian fossils higher up, meaning the rock records a span of ancient sea floor deposition later folded upright and lifted into a mountain range. Vinson Massif went undiscovered until January 1958, when a US Navy aircraft first spotted it, and it was named for Carl G. Vinson, a US congressman who had supported Antarctic research; the first ascent came in December 1966, led by Nicholas Clinch. This entity documents Vinson Massif specifically as a geological formation shaped by folding and tectonic uplift of ancient marine sediment.