The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE), which in 1956 saw the range from the air, conducted a ground-level survey of its western part in 1957.

These mountains formed around 500 million years ago during the Pan-African Ross Orogony along the former Pacific edge of the East Antarctic Craton.

It is commonly thought that the Shackleton Range was caused by an oblique collision between the East Antarctic and Kalahari cratons that closed the Mozambique Ocean.

The Ordovician-Early Devonian Blaiklock Glacier Group (475 Ma) also unconformably overlies the Shackleton Range Metamorphic Complex.

Analysis of geochronological data in these terranes implies that East Antarctica finally came together during the Pan-African orogeny, and its components were separate earlier in the Mesoproterozoic.

The events at 1,060 and 600 million years ago are similar to the Grenvillian and Pan-African tectonics in Queen Maud Land, suggesting that the Shackleton Range holds part of the Pan African Mozambique/Maud Belt.

The suture located in the extreme east of the range was formed during the amalgamation of West Gondwana and the Indo-Antarctic plate.

This terrane holds the suture formed when the combined Indo-Antarctic/West Gondwanan block collided with East Gondwana about 510 million years ago.

[7] The Shackleton Range is a rectangular horst rising above major fault zones now under the Slessor and Recovery glaciers.

[8] The center of the range is covered by a long ice cap extending from the Fuchs Dome in the west to Shotton Snowfield in the east, and bounded by cliffs as high as 400 metres (1,300 ft).

[8] The flat areas free of ice at the edge of the Fuchs Dome and Shotton Snowfield and the table mountains that surround them are the remnants of the peneplain.

The ridges between the cirques stretch over 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the south, and in seven cases widen to form flat-topped buttes.

The erratics were probably carried north from the Whichaway Nunataks and the Pensacola Mountains around the end of the Miocene during the last major expansion of the Antarctic ice sheet.

[11] During the Last Glacial Period, the Filchner ice shelf expanded and blocked the Slessor Glacier, which deposited till and scattered erratics.

However, ice from a small area in the southwest of the snowfield flows south between the Read Mountains and the Stephenson Bastion into the Recovery Glacier, and small glaciers carry ice south from the Read Mountains and Stephenson Bastion.

[12] Download coordinates as: In the interior of the range the Fuchs Dome is in the west part, from which the Shotton Snowfield extends to the east.

Extending eastward along the north (Slessor) side of the range are the Haskard Highlands, La Grange Nunataks, Herbert Mountains and Pioneers Escarpment.

Named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) in 1972 after the De Havilland Otter aircraft which supported the CTAE.

[18] The Herbert Mountains (80°20′S 25°30′W / 80.333°S 25.500°W / -80.333; -25.500) are a conspicuous group of rock summits on the east side of Gordon Glacier in the Shackleton Range of Antarctica.

[1] Stephenson Bastion (80°46′S 27°12′W / 80.767°S 27.200°W / -80.767; -27.200) is a mountain massif with steep rock cliffs on its south side, rising to 1,850 metres (6,070 ft) in the south-central part of the Shackleton Range.

It was named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) for Philip J. Stephenson, an Australian geologist with the transpolar party of the CTAE in 1956–58.

First seen from the air and examined from the ground by the CTAF in 1957, and so named because of the recovery of the expedition's vehicles which repeatedly broke into bridged crevasses on this glacier during the early stages of the crossing of Antarctica.

Glacier 16 miles (26 km) long, flowing north from Turnpike Bluff, then northwest to Mounts Provender and Lowe in the west part of the Shackleton Range.

First mapped in 1957 by the CTAE and so named because this pass, together with Gordon and Cornwall Glaciers, provides a sledging route across the Shackleton Range from north to south.

A snow pass at c. 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) trending east-west between the northwest side of Fuchs Dome and Flat Top in the Shackleton Range.

Lake lying 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of Mount Provender in the west part of the Shackleton Range.