The Denton Hills are a group of rugged foothills, 24 nautical miles (44 km) long SW-NE and 9 nautical miles (17 km) wide, to the east of Royal Society Range

Royal Society Range

The Royal Society Range is a majestic mountain range in Victoria Land, Antarctica. With its summit at , the massive Mount Lister forms the highest point in this range. Mount Lister is located along the western shore of McMurdo Sound between the Koettlitz, Skelton and Ferrar glaciers...

 on Scott Coast

Scott Coast

Scott Coast is that portion of the coast of Victoria Land between Cape Washington and Minna Bluff. Named by New Zealand Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1961 after Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Royal Navy, leader of the Discovery expedition and the British Antarctic Expedition , who lost his...

, 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...

. The feature comprises a series of E-trending ridges and valleys circumscribed by Howchin Glacier

Howchin Glacier

Howchin Glacier is a glacier between the Ward and Walcott Glaciers, on the east side of the Royal Society Range in Victoria Land. Discovered by a party led by Taylor of the British Antarctic Expedition and named for Professor W. Howchin, geologist of Adelaide....

, Armitage Saddle

Armitage Saddle

Armitage Saddle is the saddle at the head of Blue Glacier, overlooking the Howchin and Walcott Glaciers which drain toward Walcott Bay in the Koettlitz Glacier. The saddle is at the south end of the "Snow Valley" that was mapped by Armitage in 1902, and subsequently wrongly omitted from maps of...

, Blue Glacier

Blue Glacier

Blue Glacier is a large glacier located to the north of Mount Olympus in the Olympic Mountains of Washington. The glacier covers an area of and contains of ice and snow in spite of its low terminus elevation...

, the coast, and Walcott Bay

Walcott Bay

Walcott Bay is a bay indenting the coast of Victoria Land between Walcott Glacier and Heald Island. Named by the British Antarctic Expedition in association with Walcott Glacier....

. The highest summits, Mount Kowalczyk

Mount Kowalczyk

Mount Kowalczyk is a mountain, 1,690 m, standing 1 nautical mile south of Goat Mountain at the head of Hobbs Glacier in Victoria Land. Charted by the British Antarctic Expedition under Scott, 1910-13. Named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names in 1964 for Chester Kowalczyk, Chief of the...

 (1,703 m) and Goat Mountain (1,634 m) rise from Hobbs Ridge

Hobbs Ridge

Hobbs Ridge is a prominent arc-shaped ridge which circumscribes the Hobbs Glacier to the north and northwest and forms the divide with lower Blue Glacier, on Scott Coast, Victoria Land. Named in association with Hobbs Glacier....

 in the north part of the foothills. Elevations decrease southward as in Kahiwi Maihao Ridge

Kahiwi Maihao Ridge

Kahiwi Maihao Ridge is a rocky ridge in Antarctica. Kahiwi Maihao Ridge is located at , near the center of Denton Hills on Scott Coast of Victoria Land, and extends west-east between Marshall Valley and Miers Valley. It has an elevation of . The ridge was named in Māori language by the New...

 (1,045 m) near the center of the group and Xanadu Hills

Xanadu Hills

Xanadu Hills are a ridge of hills lying between Ward Valley and the Alph River in Victoria Land, a region of Antarctica. They were named by the New Zealand Geographic Board in 1994 in connection with the adjacent Alph River, an earlier name inspired by a poem of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan....

 (820 m) at the south end. The principal glaciers (Hobbs, Blackwelder, Salmon, Garwood, Joyce, Rivard, Miers, Adams, Ward) flow east but have receded, leaving several dry valleys.

The Denton Hills were discovered and roughly mapped by the Discovery expedition, 1901–04, under R.F. Scott. The hills were mapped in detail by United States Antarctic Research Program (USARP) and New Zealand Antarctic Research Program (NZARP) personnel in the years following the IGY, 1957-58.

The hills were named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names

Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names

The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending names for features in Antarctica...

 (US-ACAN) (1999) after Professor George H. Denton (Denton Glacier

Denton Glacier

Denton Glacier is a small hanging glacier which drains the northwest slopes of Mount Newall and terminates on the south wall of Wright Valley, Victoria Land. Named by U.S. geologist Robert Nichols for George Denton, geological assistant to Nichols at nearby Marble Point in the 1958-59 field season....

) of the Department of Geological Sciences and Institute for Quaternary Studies, University of Maine, Orono, who conducted geological research in the Transantarctic Mountains

Transantarctic Mountains

The three largest mountain ranges on the Antarctic continent are the Transantarctic Mountains , the West Antarctica Ranges, and the East Antarctica Ranges. The Transantarctic Mountains compose a mountain range in Antarctica which extend, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare...

and Victoria Land (including work in these hills), 1958–99, making more than 25 visits to Antarctica.