Isla Madre de Dios

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Isla Madre de Dios
Isla Madre de Dios map.svg
Waters Pacific Ocean
Geographical location 50 ° 15 ′  S , 75 ° 6 ′  W Coordinates: 50 ° 15 ′  S , 75 ° 6 ′  W
Location of Isla Madre de Dios
length 51.5 kmdep1
width 49.1 kmdep1
surface 1043 km²dep1
Highest elevation Monte Roberto
755  m
Residents uninhabited

The Isla Madre de Dios (Spanish. Mother God Island ) is an uninhabited island in Patagonia in southern Chile . It is located in the Pacific Ocean and with an area of ​​1043 km² is the fourteenth largest island in the country. It is located in the Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena and the Province of Última Esperanza and belongs to the municipality of Natales .

In 2016, national and local Chilean authorities announced their intention to put the island on the tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage.

geography

Isla Madre de Dios is located off the Chilean coast. In the west it borders on the Pacific, in the south it is only 1.9 km from the Isla Duque de York (Duke of York Island), which is about half the size . With it and other small surrounding islands it forms the Madre de Dios archipelago. In the north it is separated from the mainland by the Trinidad Canal and by Isla Mornington in the northwest (width 7-18 km). In the east is the Concepción Canal, five and a half kilometers wide at its narrowest point, which separates Isla Madre de Dios from the mainland and the islands of Jorge and Canning as well as Isla Chatham in the southeast.

The archipelago around the main island consists of nine larger and many smaller islands and is almost rectangular. By far the largest of the minor islands is Isla Anafur, which together with Isla Escribano, which adjoins it to the south, forms the southeast of the group. Directly north is Isla Drummond Hay. The next larger secondary island is the elongated Isla Tarlton in the southwest, directly to the east of it is Isla Guarello. Isla Ramón is located in the large bay Seno Barros Luco in the west of the island, which extends 21 km into the interior of the island. The three remaining islands are Isla Pilot in the north and the two smaller islands Isla Látimer and Isla Hocico de Caimán in the northwest and southeast.

The island is 49.1 km wide and 51.5 km long. The coastline is very rugged and cut by many bays and fjords. The largest after Seno Barros Luco are Ancón del Sudoeste in the north-northeast and Seno Lamero Lamero in the north. Other important ones are Seno Lameras in the southwest, Seno Delgado in the northeast and Seno Crammer and Seno Wolsey in the northwest / north. Large arms of the main bay Barros Luco are Brazo de los Puertos and Brazo Lastarria, up to 2.3 km wide and 7.8 km long.

Isla Madre de Dios is very mountainous, the highest point is Monte Roberto in the west with 755 meters. There are also the mountains Soublette, Tarleton and April (with 738 m altitude); in the north-west of the island you will find the 532 m high Tres Picos and the Williams Mountains. The coastline is 549.5 km. The island also has many lakes.

Port Henry is located on the north-west coast of the island, although it can only be used for small ships and in good weather. To the west of it there is an automatic lighthouse. On the east coast are Tom Bay and the Henderson Estuary with several anchorages. Sometimes only fishermen and seal hunters remain on the island.

Geology and archeology

The island is of magmatic origin, consists mainly of limestone and crystalline rock in the east and has high cliffs. There are also many caves created by the erosive effects of wind and tides. In the “whale cave” open to the sea, about 2,600 to 3,500 years old whale skeletons were found 10 to 30 meters above the water level. Many of the coastal caves were used by the Kawesqar , the West Patagonian indigenous people, as burial sites and temporary dwellings. A skull about 4,500 years old was found in one. Isla Madre de Dios is the largest of four islands that still have karst landscapes; these are the southernmost karst areas on earth. Every century, about 1 cm is removed by karstification. Extensive bare karst areas, which have been dubbed “marble glaciers”, are remarkable. So-called "rock comets" were deposited by melting glaciers - these are resistant boulders that protect the softer limestone from the wind, so that meter-long, streamlined ridges in the limestone remain in the lee of the boulders. Also characteristic are mushroom-shaped stone formations, which consist of an insoluble boulder, which has protected a limestone platform up to two meters high from being eroded.

Probably the most important discovery was made in 2006: A French-Chilean scientific expedition found around fifty Kawesqar rock paintings in the Cueva del Pacífico (Pacific Cave). In January 2008, a German-Chilean group of speleologists, geologists, archaeologists and paleontologists examined the caves and the consequences of climate change on Isla Madre de Dios for two months . Other such expeditions called "Ultima Patagonia" took place in 2000, 2010 and 2017. The last of these, which was geographically / speleologically centered, explored the northern part of the island and created a scientific basis for future expeditions. In the four research trips, the Center Terre association discovered a total of over 200 caves with a combined total length of over 30 kilometers, including the deepest cave in Chile at 370 meters and the longest at 2650 meters. The expeditions also examined the influence of glaciers on the southwestern part of the island from a geomorphological and speleological point of view. The work should be made easier in the future by a scientific base in the Seno Barros Luco.

Flora and fauna

Much of the island is covered with forest consisting of trees typical of the region such as the Lenga southern beech , winter bark and the most common species, the Magellanic southern beech . A decree of the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage in 2008 protected the island as a protected reserve ( Bien Nacional Protegido ) due to its geological, biological and cultural importance for the purpose of conservation and sustainable development .

Some foxes, rodents and otters live on the island. Birds found include hummingbirds, kingfishers, thrushes, magellanic steamship ducks , gray-headed geese , penguins, gulls and terns. There are eight types of freshwater fish, some of which like snooks and torpedo perches also visit the coastal regions of the Pacific Ocean. The Copihue Channel has red coral reefs of the species Errina antarctica of considerable size.

literature

  • Instituto Geográfico Militar (1970). Atlas of the Republic of Chile Santiago - Chile - Military Geography Institute. Second edition.
  • Instituto Hidrográfico de la Armada de Chile (1974). Hydrographic Atlas of Chile. Valparaíso - Chile - Hydrographic Institute of the Navy. First edition.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Islands of Chile> Madre de Dios (328) , UN system-wide Earthwatch Web Site> Island Directory, July 28, 1988.
  2. ↑ Largest Islands of Chile , worldislandsinfo.com
  3. ↑ Magallanes: Los secretos de Isla Madre de Dios , 24horas.cl, June 15, 2016
  4. ↑ Isla Madre de Dios and surroundings , geonames.org
  5. ↑ Map of Isla Madre de Dios on Openstreetmap
  6. ↑ Les secrets de Madre de Dios, l'île oubliée , Gaelle Fauquembergue, libération.fr, 23 May 2008 (archived)
  7. ↑ Englacement, eustatisme et réajustements karstiques de la bordure sud de l'archipel de Madre de Dios , members of the Ultima Patonia Expedition, November 6, 2014.
  8. ↑ Ultima Patagonia 2017 - Projet scientifique , Center Terre, Richard Maire & Stéphane Jaillet (scientific coordination); Bernard Tourte (expedition leader), 2016.
  9. ↑ center-terre.fr , expedition website
  10. ↑ Ultima Patagonia 2017 , 2016.
  11. ↑ THE SITUACION Juridica LAS ACTUALES Areas Protegidas DE CHILE> Ficha No. 187. Now Nacional Protegido Isla Madre Dios , Sergio Praus, Mario Palma, Rodolfo Dominguez; P. 366; December 2011.
  12. ↑ La Tercera : Gobierno declara isla de la Patagonia como zona protegida , January 11, 2008.
  13. ↑ Anuario hidrografico, Volume 33, Chapter V, pp. 209-236 , Marine de Chile, Imprenta de la Armada, Valparaiso, 1924
  14. ^ Ficha from antecedentes from especie> Errina antarctica (Gray, 1872) , Dra. Vreni Häussermann, Ministerio del Medio Ambient de Chile, November 17, 2014