Mount Morning lies in Victoria Land,[4] about 100 kilometres (62 mi) from Ross Island and at the foot of the Transantarctic Mountains.

[5] The Koettlitz Glacier runs along the northwestern foot of Mount Morning[6] and separates it from the Royal Society Range[7] 25 kilometres (16 mi) away.

[25] Mason Spur also contains breccias from pillow lavas, while Gandalf Ridge features a diamictite[26] and a cross-cutting fault.

[5] Mount Morning rises from a Paleozoic basement, the Koettlitz Group[13] which crops out close to Gandalf Ridge[21] in the form of granite and metasedimentary rocks.

Various phenocrysts are found within the volcanic rocks, including aegirine, augite, clinopyroxene, alkali feldspar, kaersutite, nepheline, olivine, plagioclase, quartz and sanidine.

Aegirine, aenigmatite, amphibole, augite, clinopyroxene, alkali feldspar, glass, iron oxide-titanium oxide, nepheline, plagioclase and quartz make up the groundmass.

[17] Spinel peridotite and less commonly clinopyroxenite, dunite, harzburgite, lherzolite, norite, pyroxenite and websterite have been reported as xenoliths.

[40] Basaltic rocks are concentrated on the lower slopes, while phonolite is mainly found in the upper sector of Mount Morning.

[21] The composition changes between the early and late volcanic activity of Mount Morning may be due to alteration in crustal magma processes.

[42] Even older activity at Mount Morning may be recorded in volcanic deposits from Cape Roberts[43] which go back to 24.1 million years ago.

[25] The early phase has produced ignimbrites from a caldera at Mason Spur, an otherwise rare type of volcanoes in Antarctica.

[49] The older rocks have undergone significant glaciation, while the younger ones are largely uneroded[25] and make up the present-day edifice.

[17] Volcanic activity mostly occurred under the atmosphere, with the exception of some lavas that may have been erupted in a subaqueous environment[37] and hyaloclastites which have been used to infer that glaciers existed there 15.4 million years ago.

[53] Thus, Mount Morning was considered dormant by Martin, Cooper and Dunlap 2010[52] and might be the source of tephra layers found in the area.

Gandalf is a whimsical name put forward by geologist Philip R. Kyle, Institute of Polar Studies, The Ohio State University, who examined the ridge in December 1977.

The discovery of very hard volcanic rock at this ridge led to the naming: Gandalf, after a crusty character (a wizard) in J.R.R.

The name was suggested by geologist Anne C. Wright, Department of Geoscience, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, a member of the NMUMT field party that camped on the ridge in the 1985–86 season.

This name has been included as a US-ACAN proposal even though it was apparently applied in about 1977 by Anne Wright (now Grassham) who worked on the ridge with P.M. Kyle.

A rock peak rising to 1,918 metres (6,293 ft) high at the south end of Testa Ridge on the north slope of Mount Morning.

(Rick) Campbell, ASA, fixed-wing Flight Operations Coordinator at McMurdo Station, active in science support in Antarctica from 1981.

Named by US-ACAN after George A. Weidner, Department of Meteorology (later Space Science and Engineering Center), University of Wisconsin.

A linear volcanic outcrop approximately 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) long descending from the northwest slope of Mount Morning.

An elevated spur, partially ice-covered and over 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) high, which projects eastward from Mount Morning.