Adelaide Island
| Adelaide Island | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Waters | Southern ocean |
| Archipelago | Adelaide and Biscoe Islands |
| Geographical location | 67 ° 15 ′ S , 68 ° 30 ′ W |
 |
|
| length | 135 km |
| width | 33 km |
| surface | 4th 463.1 km² |
| Highest elevation |
Mount Gaudry 2315 m |
| Residents | 22 ward staff (130 in summer) <1 inhabitant / km² |
| main place | ( Rothera station ) |
 |
|
The Adelaide Island ( English Adelaide Island ; Spanish Isla Adelaïda (Chile) and Isla Belgrano (Argentina)) is the seventh largest Antarctic island .
geography
Adelaide Island is located on the northern edge of Marguerite Bay off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula . It is separated from the Arrowsmith Peninsula of the Antarctic Peninsula by an icy inlet, The Gullet (called Garganta canan from Argentina and Angostura from Chile ) . At the narrowest point, the distance from the mainland is around 3 kilometers. The islands of Hansen and Day lie between Adelaide Island and the mainland, and Liard Island to the north .
The largely ice-covered Adelaide Island is 135 km long, a maximum of 33 km wide and measures 4463 km² in area. It reaches a height of 2315 m above sea level in Mount Gaudry .
history
The island was first sighted on February 15, 1832 by John Biscoe , a British sealer and explorer, and named after Queen Adelheid ("Queen Adelaide"). Biscoe then assumed that the island would be the southernmost country. For reasons unknown, he clearly misjudged the size of the island; he stated their length as only 8 miles (about 15 km).
It was not until November 1893 that the island was sighted again by the Norwegian whaler Carl Julius Evensen . On December 25, 1904, the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Charcot arrived on the island. Since he realized that the country was much larger, he initially assumed that he had discovered a new, previously unknown country and named it "Côte Loubet". During his Antarctic expedition, which ran from 1908 to 1910, Charcot mapped the country and determined that it was the island that Biscoe had discovered. He then transferred the name Loubet Coast to the neighboring coast of the mainland.
In July and August 1936 the island was visited by the British Graham Land Expedition , and in the late 1940s by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS). The FIDS maintained a research station on the island from 1961 to 1977. This so-called "Base T" was handed over to Chile in 1984 and is still used in summer under the name Teniente Luis Carvajal Villarroel . The Rothera station on the south-east coast was inaugurated by the British in February 1976 . In 1989 and 1990, the runway for aircraft there was significantly expanded.
literature
- William J. Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2003. ISBN 978-1576074220 , p. 4.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ John Stewart: Antarctica - An Encyclopedia . Vol. 1, McFarland & Co., Jefferson and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-3590-6 , p. 8.
- ↑ UNEP Islands (English).
- ↑ Mount Gaudry on Peakbagger.com (English).