Fletcher Islands
| Fletcher Islands | ||
|---|---|---|
| Waters | Commonwealth Bay ( Lake D'Urville ) | |
| Geographical location | 66 ° 53 ′ S , 143 ° 5 ′ E | |
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| Main island | Fletcher Island | |
The Fletcher Islands are a small group of islands off the George V coast in the Australian Antarctic Territory . They are 10 km west-southwest of Cape Gray in the eastern part of the Commonwealth Bay .
Participants of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914) under the direction of the Australian polar explorer Douglas Mawson discovered them and named the largest of them. This island is named after Frank Douglas Fletcher (1888–1936), first officer of the ship Aurora on this research trip. The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names transferred the name to the archipelago in 1956. This happened following the mapping carried out in 1955 by Gardner Dean Blodgett (* 1925) using aerial photographs of the US American Operation Highjump (1946–1947).
Web links
- Fletcher Islands in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey (English)
- Fletcher Islands on geographic.org (English)