McDonald Islands
| McDonald Islands | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Waters | Indian Ocean | |
| Geographical location | 53 ° 3 ′ S , 72 ° 36 ′ E | |
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| Number of islands | 2 | |
| Main island | McDonald Island | |
| Total land area | 2.45 km² | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
The McDonald Islands are a small uninhabited group of islands in the southern Indian Ocean 427 kilometers southeast of the French Kerguelen . Together with the island of Heard, 43 kilometers to the east, and the marine area around the islands, they form the Australian territory of Heard and McDonald Islands .
geography
The group of McDonald Islands consists of the main island McDonald (3922 km from Western Australia) and Meyer Rock, about one kilometer to the northwest . There are also other very small rock formations in front of the rugged coasts of the main island. The former northern side island Flat Island has grown together with the main island as a result of volcanic activity at the beginning of the 21st century.
The islands and rock formations are of volcanic origin. The main island McDonald Island with an area of more than two square kilometers reaches a height of about 230 meters. Due to ongoing volcanism, the island's size and altitude may continue to change significantly.
history
The McDonald Islands were discovered on January 4, 1854 by Captain William McDonald on board the ship Samarang . Due to the rugged coastline and the harsh, stormy climate, landing was and is very difficult. The island has only been entered twice (1971 and 1980).
The geophysicist Georg Neumayer sailed with the La Rochelle in autumn 1856 on his second voyage from Hamburg to Australia, where he arrived in January 1857. During this trip Neumayer believed to have discovered a group of islands and named them "King Max Islands" after his patron King Maximilian II of Bavaria . In fact, the “McDonald Islands” had been discovered a few years earlier. August Petermann wrote a detailed and extensive description of the "discovery" of Georg Neumayer and the other discoverers of the islands in his Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen in 1858 .
The islands were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997 and are part of the Australian Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve, established in 2002 .
Volcanism
After a period of rest estimated by scientists to be 35,000 to 100,000 years, a new phase of volcanic activity began in the 1990s. After a submarine eruption was suspected in the immediate vicinity of the island in December 1992 , the volcano on McDonald Island erupted again for the first time at the turn of 1996/1997. Since then several eruptions have been registered, the last one in 2005. The appearance of the island has changed fundamentally since 1990: the main island and Flat Island have been united; the area of the island has more than doubled from 1.13 km² to 2.45 km². The highest point is no longer in the south, but in the north of the island and exceeds the previous summit by almost 100 meters, and in the east a long headland with a reef has formed.
Web links
- McDonald Islands in the Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian Institution (English).
- Heard Island & McDonald Islands. Official website. Australian Government - Department of the Environment and Energy - Australian Antarctic Division (English).
- The history and geography of Heard Island, Southern Indian Ocean. ( Memento of March 17, 2006 in the Internet Archive ). With a historical map and information about the McDonalds Islands (English).
- Heard and McDonald Islands. Australian Government - Geoscience Australia (English).
- A photo of the McDonald Islands. ( Memento from November 27, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heard and McDonald Islands. Australian Government - Geoscience Australia , accessed October 5, 2016.
- ↑ The so-called King Max Islands,…. In: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen , 1858, Justus Perthes, Gotha, pp. 17–33 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ McDonald Islands. In: Volcano World. Oregon State University , accessed May 15, 2017 .
- ^ Patrick G. Quilty: Origin and evolution of the sub-Antarctic islands: the foundation . In: Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania . tape 141 , no. 1 . Royal Society of Tasmania, 2007, ISSN 0080-4703 , Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, p. 53–54 (English, online as eprint from the University of Tasmania [PDF; 1,3 MB ]). online] as [[Eprint]] of the [[University of Tasmania] ( memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Volcanic eruption causes Australian island to grow. In: ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation , August 10, 2005, accessed May 15, 2017 .
- ↑ Global Volcanism Program, 2002. Report on McDonald Islands (Australia) . In: Richard Wunderman (Ed.): Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network . tape 27 , no. 12 . Smithsonian Institution , December 2002, doi : 10.5479 / si.GVP.BGVN200212-234011 (English).
