Morrell Island

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Morrell Island (Thule)
NASA image of Morrell Island (Thule)
NASA image of Morrell Island (Thule)
Waters South Atlantic
Archipelago Southern Thule Islands
Geographical location 59 ° 26 '24 "  S , 27 ° 22' 18"  W Coordinates: 59 ° 26 '24 "  S , 27 ° 22' 18"  W
Morrell Island (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)
Morrell Island
length 7 km
width 5 km
surface 14 km²
Highest elevation Mount Larsen
710  m
Residents uninhabited
main place Corbeta Uruguay
(former station)
The former Argentinean station Corbeta Uruguay before its destruction in 1981
The former Argentinean station Corbeta Uruguay before its destruction in 1981

The island of Morrell Island ( English Morrell Island ) is the second largest of the three islands in the South Atlantic , located in the sub-Antarctic archipelago of the South Sandwich Islands , which form the group of the South Thul Islands . It is named after Benjamin Morrell . Name variants are Süd-Thule , English Thule Island and Spanish Tule del Sur .

Morrell is separated from the nearest, east neighboring Cook Island by the Douglas Strait , which is about four kilometers wide . The island is dominated by the caldera of the Mount Larsen volcano , which measures 1.5 by 2 kilometers. The terrain rises steeply to the caldera.

1300 meters east of Hewison Point, the southeastern end of the island, is the small and steep rock Twitcher Rock , with a diameter of 140 to 150 meters and a height of 55 meters.

The island with an area of ​​around 14 km² is uninhabited, but offers an important nesting area for numerous sea ​​birds .

In 1775 the island was discovered by the British navigator James Cook .

From 1976 to 1982, the permanently manned Argentine research station Corbeta Uruguay was located at Ferguson Bay on the flat peninsula in the southeast of Morrell Island . Argentina also uses this name for the peninsula, Península Corbeta Uruguay . A few hundred meters west of it, Argentina built the Refugio Teniente Esquivel summer station in January 1955 , but had to be abandoned a year later due to a volcanic eruption of Mount Harmer on the neighboring Cook Island.

  • Refugio Teniente Esquivel (1955–56)

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.histarmar.com.ar/Antartida/RefugioThule2-ElYeti.htm
  2. ↑ http://www.histarmar.com.ar/Antartida/RefugioThule1-.htm

Web links