Mount Terror

Mount Terror is a large, extinct shield volcano on Ross Island, Antarctica, already documented in this section as the island formed by the coalescence of four volcanic centers, reaching about 3,230 meters and forming the eastern end of the island opposite the still-active Mount Erebus. Built from basaltic and phonolitic lava typical of the McMurdo Volcanic Group, it is heavily eroded and mantled by ice compared with Erebus's younger, more active profile, consistent with having ceased eruptive activity considerably earlier. The mountain was named, together with Mount Erebus, by the British explorer James Clark Ross during his 1839 to 1843 expedition, after his two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, both of which were later lost with Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 Arctic expedition to find the Northwest Passage, wrecks not located until 2014 and 2016 respectively. Mount Terror's slopes hold long-term automatic weather stations and have been studied for their volcanic history as part of research into the West Antarctic Rift System's broader eruptive record. This entity documents Mount Terror specifically as a geological formation, the extinct eastern shield volcano of Ross Island, named for James Clark Ross's ship HMS Terror.