Southern Cross Mountains is the name applied to the group of mountain range

Mountain range

A mountain range is a single, large mass consisting of a succession of mountains or narrowly spaced mountain ridges, with or without peaks, closely related in position, direction, formation, and age; a component part of a mountain system or of a mountain chain...

s lying between the Mariner

Mariner Glacier

Mariner Glacier is a major glacier over long, descending southeast from the plateau of Victoria Land, between Mountaineer Range and Malta Plateau, and terminating at Lady Newnes Bay, Ross Sea, where it forms the floating Mariner Glacier Tongue...

 and Priestley Glacier

Priestley Glacier

The Priestley Glacier is a major valley glacier, about 96 km long, originating at the edge of the polar plateau of Victoria Land. The glacier drains southeast between the Deep Freeze and Eisenhower ranges to enter the northern end of the Nansen Ice Sheet.First explored by the Northern Party...

s in Victoria Land

Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea and on the west by Oates Land and Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the UK's Queen Victoria...

. Seaward parts of this area were first viewed by Ross

James Clark Ross

Sir James Clark Ross , was a British naval officer and explorer. He explored the Arctic with his uncle Sir John Ross and Sir William Parry, and later led his own expedition to Antarctica.-Arctic explorer:...

 in 1841 and subsequently by expeditions led by Borchgrevink

Carstens Borchgrevink

Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink was an Anglo-Norwegian polar explorer and a pioneer of modern Antarctic travel. He was the precursor of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen and other more famous names associated with the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

, Scott

Robert Falcon Scott

Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13...

, Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

 and Byrd

Richard Evelyn Byrd

Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr., USN was a naval officer who specialized in feats of exploration. He was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics...

. The precise mapping of its overall features was accomplished from U.S. Navy air photographs and surveys by New Zealand and American parties in the 1950s and 1960s. Named by the northern party of NZGSAE, 1965-66.