Ricker Hills
hills in Antarctica

The Ricker Hills (75°41′S 159°10′E) are a group of mainly ice-free hills, about 9 nautical miles (17 km; 10 mi) long, lying just west of Hollingsworth Glacier in Antarctica.
They were mapped and named by the Southern Party of the New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE), 1962–63, for J.F. Ricker, a geologist with the party.
Location
The Ricker Hills are just west of the Hollingsworth Glacier, which flows along their east side, and south of the David Glacier. The Antarctic Plateau is to their west and south, with various scattered peaks or nunataks emerging from the ice.
Features
Features of the Ricker Hills include the Morris Basin in the north and Benson Knob in the south.
Morris Basin
75°39′S 159°09′E.
A basin of about 9 square nautical miles (31 km2; 12 sq mi) in area in the north part of the Ricker Hills, in the Prince Albert Mountains, Victoria Land.
The south portion of the basin is ice free but the north portion is occupied by a large lobe of ice.
Mapped by USGS from surveys and United States Navy air photos, 1956-62.
Named by US-ACAN for Robert W. Morris, biologist at McMurdo Station in the 1965-66 and 1966-67 seasons.
Benson Knob
75°45′S 159°17′E.
A distinctive rock knob, 1,540 metres (5,050 ft) high, at the south extremity of Ricker Hills in the Prince Albert Mountains, Victoria Land.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ricker Hills” is hills in Antarctica. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ricker, Hills and hills, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ricker Hills” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.