The Patuxent Range is a major range of the Pensacola Mountains, comprising the Thomas Hills, Anderson Hills, Mackin Table and various nunataks and ridges bounded by the Foundation Ice Stream, Academy Glacier and the Patuxent Ice Stream. Discovered and partially photographed on January 13, 1956 in the course of a transcontinental nonstop plane flight by personnel of U.S. Navy Operation Deep Freeze I from McMurdo Sound to Weddell Sea and return.
The Thomas Hills is a linear group of hills, long, between Foundation Ice Stream and MacNamara Glacier at the northern end of the Patuxent Range. Named by US-ACAN at the suggestion of Captain Finn Ronne, U.S. Navy Reserve (USNR), leader at Ellsworth Station, 1957. Charles S. Thomas was Secretary of the Navy, 1954-57, during the first few years of the Deep Freeze operations.