CHAPTER XX 



NOTES OX GENERAL GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF 

 ANTARCTICA TO OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD 



SuESS * in his monumental work has commented on certain points of resemblance 

 between the tectonic lines of the American Sector of Antarctica, festooned with 

 islands, and those of Central America, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and 

 the Greater and Lesser Antilles, stating that {op.cit., p. 495) : "The resemblance of 

 the South Sandwich Islands and the volcanoes of the Lesser Antilles has often been 

 remarked upon." At the same time he cautiously concludes that " No connexion 

 can be shoAvn to exist between the widely remote volcanic indications of Burdwood 

 Bank, the volcanic arc of the South Shetland Islands, and the Bransfield volcanoes 

 (Bridgman, Deception, and others)." Arctowskif has described the chief mountain 

 chain of the American Sector as the Antarctandes, and has stated that these 

 Antarctic ranges are not merely a pile of eruptive rocks, but that they are a folded 

 range, in which perhaps the presence of eruptive rocks is accessory and of secondary 

 importance. 0. NordenskjiJld, J J. Gunnar Andersson,§ and M. E. Gourdon || 

 have all insisted on the genetic affinity of the eruptive rocks of South America with 

 those of the American Sector of Antarctica, and the two former authors emphasize 

 other points of resemblance. 



There can be no doubt that topographically and geologically Antarctica bears 

 a remarkable resemblance to South America. On the west side of the American 

 Sector of Antarctica lies an archipelago recalling the Chonos, Madre de Dios, and 

 Magellanic Archipelagoes of Southern Chili and Tierra del Fuego. Just as is the 

 case with these South American archipelagoes, the archipelago of the American 



* "The Face of the Earth" (Das Autlitz dei- Eide). By Eduaid Suess. Translated by Hertha 

 B. C. SoHas under the direction of W. J. Solhis, vol. iv. pp. 470-473. 



•]• Expedition Antarctique Beige. Voyage du S.Y. Belijica en 1897-9, Geologie, Les Glaciers, 

 par Henryk Argtowski. Anvers J. S. Buschman, 1908, p. 33. 



\ Petrographische Untersuchungen, aus dem westantarktischen Gebiete, Bull, of the Geol. In.st. 

 of Upsala, vol. vi., part 2. 



Die Schwedische Sudpolar-Expedition und ihre geographische Tiitigkeit, von Otto Nordenskjcild, 

 Stockholm, 1911, pp. 208-209. 



§ '' On the Geology of Graham Land," by J. Gunnar Andersson, Bull, of the Geol. Instit. of Upsala, 

 vol. vii. p. 70. 



II Expedition Antarctique Frangaise (1903-1905), commandee par le Dr. Jean Charcot, Gdographie 

 Physique, Glaciologie, Petrographie, par E. Gourdon, Paris, 1908, pp. 206-208. 



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