Mabel Island

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Mabel Island
The west of Franz Josef Land with Bell Island in the south
The west of Franz Josef Land with Bell Island in the south
Waters Barents Sea
Archipelago Franz Josef Land
Geographical location 80 ° 2 ′ 30 ″  N , 49 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  E Coordinates: 80 ° 2 ′ 30 ″  N , 49 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  E
Mabel Island (Franz Josef Land)
Mabel Island
length 9.5 km
width 7 km
surface 40 km²
Highest elevation 356  m
Residents uninhabited

The Mabel Island ( Russian Остров Мейбел , Ostrow Meibel ) is an uninhabited island in the arctic Franz Josef Land belonging to Russia .

It is located on the western southern edge of the archipelago. It is separated from Bell Island in the southwest by the Eira Strait, which is only 800 m wide, and from Bruce Island in the northeast by 4 km wide Bates Strait. The three islands border the Nightingale Strait to the northwest. Mabel Island is about 40 km² in size and has the approximate shape of an equilateral triangle . Most of the island is covered by an ice cap , but there are also larger unglaciated areas, especially in the south. A striking mountain that towers above the ice cap on its southern edge is the highest on the island at 356 m.

Mabel Island was discovered on August 18, 1880 by Benjamin Leigh Smith , who named it after his favorite niece Amable Ludlow (1860–1939), the daughter of his sister Isabella (1830–1873) and General John Ludlows (1801–1881). Leigh Smith found a sheltered place between Bell, Mabel, Bruce and Northbrook Island , which he named Eira Harbor after his ship. The British polar explorer Frederick Jackson was next to reach Mabel Island in 1897 on a discovery tour to the west of Franz Josef Land.

In August 1914, the last survivors of the Brusilov expedition , Valerian Albanow and Alexander Konrad (1890-1940), drove south past the island in a kayak . They were rescued by the Sedow expedition at Cape Flora on Northbrook Island . The southern cape of Mabel Island was later named Cape Konrad.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bell Insel, Camp EIRA on the website www.franz-josef-land.info , accessed on July 5, 2017.
  2. ^ Peter Joseph Capelotti: Shipwreck at Cape Flora. The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England's Forgotten Arctic Explorer (PDF; 41.2 MB). University of Calgary Press, Calgary 2013, ISBN 978-1-55238-705-4 , p. 162 (English)
  3. ↑ Walerian Albanow: In the realm of the white death , Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 2002. ISBN 3-442-76020-8 , p. 213 ff.

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