Hope Bay
| Hope Bay | ||
|---|---|---|
| Waters | Antarctic Sound | |
| Land mass | Trinity Peninsula | |
| Geographical location | 63 ° 23 ′ 0 ″ S , 56 ° 59 ′ 0 ″ W | |
|
||
| width | 3 km | |
| depth | 5 km | |
| Tributaries | Arena Glacier , Depot Glacier , Flora Glacier | |
The Hope Bay (Spanish Bahía Esperanza ) is a 5 km long and 3 km wide bay on the east coast of Trinity Peninsula ; it cuts into the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and opens onto the Antarctic Sound .
The bay was discovered on January 15, 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskjöld , who also named it.
fauna
One of the largest colonies of the Adélie penguin ( Pygoscelis adeliae ) is located at Hope Bay . In 1985, 125,000 breeding pairs were counted here. Furthermore breed here the Eselspinguin ( Pygoscelis Papua ), the Brown Skua ( Catharacta lonnbergi ), the Antarctic Tern ( sterna vittata ), the Wilson's Sturmschwalbe ( Oceanites oceanicus ) which Kelp ( Larus dominicanus ) and the snowy sheathbill ( Chionis alba ). The ice-free land on the east bank of Hope Bay is therefore designated by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (AQ074).
Others
The old British research and military station D was established here on February 13, 1945 by Operation Tabarin . In 1948 it burned down partially and was closed in 1964. On December 8, 1997, the base was handed over to Uruguay , which it renamed Estación Científica Antártica Ruperto Elichiribehety .
Today's Argentine base, the Esperanza station , was built in 1952. The Argentine army has a large presence there and several families live there. The first birth on the Antarctic mainland took place here when Emilio Palma was born in 1978 .
Hope Bay was also the setting for the first conflict-fired shots in Antarctica, when the Argentine crew fired machine gun shots into the air in 1952 over a British team that unloaded the John Biscoe . The Argentines later apologized diplomatically on the grounds that there had been a misunderstanding and that the Argentine military commander had exceeded his authority.
Mount Flora , about three kilometers southeast of Esperanza Station, is a site of fossil plants from the Paleozoic Era . An area of 35 km² is now specially protected by the Antarctic Treaty as ASPA-148 and may only be entered with permission.
Since 1989, a three hectare area has been designated as a specially protected area of the Antarctic.
Hope Bay is a port of call for cruise ships .
Web links
- About the British station (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hope Bay (AQ074) , datasheet on the BirdLife International website, accessed July 23, 2018.
- ↑ Management Plan for Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 148 Mount Flora, Hope Bay, Antarctic Peninsula (PDF; 298 kB), Measure 1 (2002)