Mount Usborne

Not to be confused with Mount Osborne.

Mount Usborne
Highest point
Elevation	705 m (2,313 ft)
Prominence	705 m (2,313 ft)
Parent peak	none – Highest peak on the Falkland Islands
Coordinates	51°41′30″S 58°50′04″W
Geography
Mount Usborne East Falkland, Falkland Islands, south Atlantic Ocean
Parent range	Wickham Heights

Mount Usborne (Spanish: Cerro Alberdi) is a mountain on East Falkland. At 705 m (2,313 ft) above sea level, it is the highest point in the Falkland Islands. It is only 5 metres (16 ft) taller than Mount Adam, the highest peak on West Falkland.

The mountain is referenced by Charles Darwin in Chapter 9 of Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. It is named after Alexander Burns Usborne, master's assistant on HMS Beagle, the ship that took Darwin on his famous voyage.

As one of the highest mountains of the Falklands, it experienced some glaciation. The remains of glacial cirques can be seen on the mountain. The handful of Falklands mountains over 600 m (2,000 ft) have

... pronounced corries with small glacial lakes at their bases, morainic ridges deposited below the corries suggest that the glaciers and ice domes were confined to areas of maximum elevation with other parts of the islands experiencing a periglacial climate.

Sources

• Stonehouse, B (ed.) Encyclopedia of Antarctica and the Southern Oceans (2002, ISBN 0-471-98665-8)

External links

• A Stroll up Mount Usborne
• Satellite picture of Mount Usborne at the Wayback Machine (archived December 23, 2010)