Nature · Antarctica · bounded ice-covered summit area
Mount Vinson: terrain elevation and local relief
Mount Vinson uses an approximately 4,895-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 2,520 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
≈ 4,895 m
Data-derived estimate- Measurement
- Highest sampled surface in the documented Copernicus terrain section · EGM2008
- Subject or version
- Antarctica · bounded ice-covered summit area
- In feet, rounded
- 16,060.1 ft (1 ft = 0.3048 m)
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Terrain boundary, base and datum
- Vertical reference
- EGM2008. Published surveys are separate; no datum conversion is applied.
- Highest sampled surface
- 4895.1 m at -78.525556°, -85.617500°.
- Local base
- 2374.8 m at -78.556389°, -85.850000°. Lowest sampled point within this bounded terrain section.
- Section bounds in WGS84-G1150
- West -85.865417°, east -85.370417°; south -78.556528°, north -78.493750°.
- View and scale
- Orthographic map section facing north. Equal horizontal and vertical map scales. Approximate grid spacing: 18.5 m east-west and 31.0 m north-south. Lower and surrounding terrain omitted.
produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved
A little more perspective
Gildea and Splettstoesser’s 2007 Antarctic topography paper reports a 2004 GPS elevation of 4,892 meters for Vinson. This Copernicus surface reaches approximately 4,895 meters in EGM2008, about 32 meters from the selected precise identity coordinate. The published GPS result and the later compiled surface model remain independent. Snow and ice contribute to the modeled shape; the lowest selected sample is not the Antarctic ice sheet’s general elevation.
The local-relief view subtracts the lowest sampled point in this section: 2374.8 meters at -78.556389° latitude, -85.850000° longitude. This produces about 2,520 meters of relief within the stated boundary. It is not a universal mountain base, a route’s total ascent, or topographic prominence.
The rendered surface uses the public 2021 Copernicus release, primarily based on TanDEM-X observations from 2011–2015 with infill from other sources. It is a surface model rather than a current bare-earth survey. Neutral shading explains the geometry without claiming a snow season or photographic ground texture. No datum conversion or summit correction is applied.
Quick facts
Mount Vinson uses an approximately 4,895-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 2,520 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
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Sources and measurement notes
- Gildea and Splettstoesser, 2007: New elevation data for the highest mountains in Antarctica, USGS
- Copernicus DEM: dataset definition, datums and attribution
- Public Copernicus GLO-30 release documentation
- Wikidata: summit-area identity and initial coordinate
- Copernicus source terrain tile 1 (GeoTIFF)
Vinson’s dated 4,892-meter GPS result remains distinct from the approximately 4,895-meter sampled surface.
Source review recorded . Maintained by Ishan Karunaratne. Suggest a correction with a source and the exact measurement being compared.