Hawker Island
| Hawker Island | ||
|---|---|---|
| Waters | Cooperation lake | |
| Geographical location | 68 ° 38 '5 " S , 77 ° 51' 40" O | |
|
||
| length | 2 km | |
| width | 1.7 km | |
| surface | 1.9 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 40 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
The Hawker Island is one of the coast of Vestfoldberge in East Antarctica offshore island in the Kooperationssee .
geography
The island is off the Mule Peninsula of the Vestfold Mountains about 300 meters to the west and is surrounded by other islands. The Australian Davis station is about seven kilometers away . Hawker Island has an irregular shape and extends two kilometers in a north-south direction and 1.7 kilometers in an east-west direction. They run through two parallel ridges from north to south and end in peninsulas. In a steep cliff on a third peninsula west of it, the island reaches its highest point, which is around 40 meters above sea level. The surface of the island is free of snow and ice in summer and covered by a thin layer of snow in winter.
climate
Hawker Island has a polar maritime climate that is cold, dry and windy. The mean maximum temperature in January is 3.2 ° C, in July at −14.3 ° C, the mean minimum temperature in January at −1.2 ° C and in August at −20.8 ° C. Over the year, an average of 70.9 mm of precipitation falls.
fauna and Flora
Hawker Island has the southernmost giant petrel breeding colony . In order to protect these, the entire island was declared a specially protected area of Antarctica (ASPA-167) at the request of Australia . Discovered in 1963, the colony consisted of 45 pairs in 2010.
Between 2500 and 7500 pairs of the Adelie penguin breed annually in the west of the island . At the tip of the southwestern peninsula there is a small colony of the Cape petrel in summer .
On a beach in the southwest of Hawker Island, some Weddell seals give birth to their young between mid-October and late November. Nearby, southern elephant seals also populate the beach in summer.
The flora on Hawker Island consists mainly of algae . Mosses and lichens are rare.
history
The island was photographed from the air by the Lars Christensen Expedition in 1936/37 and then mapped. According to aerial photographs taken by an Australian expedition , the island was re-mapped in 1958 and named after the radio supervisor of the Davis Station's first winter team, Alan Charles Hawker.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Hawker Island, Vestfold Hills, Ingrid Christensen Coast, Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica (PDF; 428 kB), Management Plan for Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 167, accessed June 27, 2016
- ↑ Climate Statistics for Davis , Australian Government, Bureau of Meteorology, accessed June 27, 2016