Meyer Desert is a triangular ice-free area of about 50 square miles (129.5 km²) at the north end of the Dominion Range

Dominion Range

The Dominion Range is a broad mountain range, about long, forming a prominent salient at the juncture of the Beardmore and Mill glaciers in Antarctica. The range is part of the Queen Maud Mountains...

, near the confluence of the Beardmore and Mill Glaciers. Named by New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition

New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition

The New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition describes a series of scientific explorations of the continent Antarctica. The expeditions were notably active in 1957-58 and again in 1958-59. The 1957-58 expedition went to the Ross Dependency and named the Borchgrevink Glacier...

 (NZGSAE) (1961-62) for George Meyer

George Meyer (disambiguation)

George Meyer may refer to:* George Meyer, American film producer and writer * George Meyer , American baseball player* George von Lengerke Meyer, U. S...

 of United States Antarctic Research Program (USARP), who was scientific leader at McMurdo Station

McMurdo Station

McMurdo Station is a U.S. Antarctic research center located on the southern tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National...

, 1961, and led a field party into this area, summer 1961-62.

An unidentified fragmentary lymnaeid from deposits of the Meyer Desert Formation reported in 2003 has been the first freshwater snail

Freshwater snail

A freshwater snail is one kind of freshwater mollusc, the other kind being freshwater clams and mussels, i.e. freshwater bivalves. Specifically a freshwater snail is a gastropod that lives in a watery non-marine habitat. The majority of freshwater gastropods have a shell, with very few exceptions....

 recorded from Antarctica. Also unidentified freshwater bivalve Pisidium

Pisidium

Pisidium is a genus of very small or minute freshwater clams known as pill clams or pea clams, aquatic bivalve molluscs in the family Sphaeriidae.-Subgenera and species:Subgenera and species within the genus Pisidium include:...

sensu stricto reported in the same paper from the same deposits has been the first freshwater bivalve

Freshwater bivalve

Freshwater bivalves are one kind of freshwater molluscs. They are bivalves which live in freshwater, as opposed to saltwater. Although the majority of species of bivalve molluscs live in the sea, a number of different families of bivalves live in freshwater...

 reported from Antarctica. Both together are the first freshwater mollusc

Freshwater mollusc

Freshwater molluscs are those members of the Phylum Mollusca which live in freshwater habitats, both lotic such as rivers, streams, canals, springs, and underground cave streams and lentic such as lakes, ponds , and ditches.This article is about freshwater Mollusca in general; for information on...

s from Antarctica.