Seal Islands (Antarctic Peninsula)

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Seal Islands
Larsen Island with the Argentine polar station Base Antártica Matienzo
Larsen Island with the Argentine polar station Base Antártica Matienzo
Waters Weddell Sea
Geographical location 65 ° 0 ′  S , 60 ° 13 ′  W Coordinates: 65 ° 0 ′  S , 60 ° 13 ′  W
Seal Islands (Antarctic Peninsula) (Antarctica)
Seal Islands (Antarctic Peninsula)
Number of islands 15th
Residents uninhabited
The Seal Islands are off the Nordenskjöld coast
The Robben Island are the
Nordenskjöld Coast in front

The Seal Islands ( English Seal Nunataks ) are a group of islands off the Nordenskjöld coast on the eastern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Weddell Sea . The islands are also described as nunataks . In contrast to other nunataks, however, they are not mountains protruding from the ice sheet or glaciers , but are actually islands of the sea. The former surrounding ice shelf ( Larsen-A ) disintegrated in 1995. A few kilometers southeast of the archipelago is the much larger Robertson Island .

The Seal Islands were discovered and named in December 1893 by Carl Anton Larsen , whose Antarctic expedition with the ships Jason , Hertha and Castor was financed by the Norwegian company A / S Oceana (Sandefjord). In October 1902 Otto Nordenskjöld explored and described the seal islands intensively as head of the Swedish Antarctic expedition . The islands are of volcanic origin and between 200,000 (Donald Island and Gray Island) and 1.5 million years old (Larsen Island and Bruce Island). Limited volcanic activity was observed on four of the islands (including Lindenberg Island) by Larsen in 1893 and again in the early 1980s. At 368 m, Murdoch Island is the highest of the Seal Islands. Pedersen Island is the westernmost and at the same time closest to the coast of the islands, only about 6 kilometers from the Antarctic mainland.

In 1961 Argentina established the polar station Base Antártica Matienzo, which is now only seasonally operated, on Larsen Island .

Islands

The seal islands include:

f1Georeferencing Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

island Area
( km² )		 named after… Coordinates
Christensen Nunatak
( Christensen Volcano )		 9.82 Christen Fredrik Christensen (1845–1923), the director of the Larsen Expedition shipping company 65 ° 6 ′  S , 59 ° 31 ′  W
Castor Island 3.16 a ship of the Larsen expedition 65 ° 10 ′  S , 59 ° 55 ′  W
Pollux-Nunatak 0.10 the Greek legend, the brother of Castor 65 ° 5 ′  S , 59 ° 53 ′  W
Larsen Island 0.67 Carl Anton Larsen 64 ° 58 ′  S , 60 ° 5 ′  W
Murdoch Nunatak 8.92 William Gordon Burn-Murdoch , a Scottish artist and participant in the Dundee Whaling Expedition 1892-1893 65 ° 1 ′  S , 60 ° 2 ′  W
Arctowski Nunatak 0.75 Henryk Arctowski , a Polish geologist and participant in the Belgica expedition 1897–1899 65 ° 6 ′  S , 60 ° 0 ′  W
Herthainsel 2.16 a ship of the Larsen expedition 65 ° 0 ′  S , 60 ° 13 ′  W
Gray nunatak 0.73 Captain David Gray (1828-1896), who in 1891 tried in vain to organize a whaling expedition to Antarctica 65 ° 6 ′  S , 60 ° 4 ′  W
Donald Nunatak 0.33 Charles William Donald (1870–1932), a Scottish naturalist and participant in the Dundee Whaling Expedition 1892–1893 65 ° 5 ′  S , 60 ° 6 ′  W
Åkerlundh-Nunatak 0.05 Gustaf Åkerlundh (* 1881), the youngest participant in the Swedish Antarctic Expedition 1901–1903 65 ° 4 ′  S , 60 ° 10 ′  W
Bruce Nunatak 6.29 William Speirs Bruce , a Scottish polar explorer and participant in the Dundee Whaling Expedition 1892-1893 65 ° 5 ′  S , 60 ° 15 ′  W
Jason Island
English Dallmann Nunatak 		3.17 a ship of the Larsen expedition 65 ° 1 ′  S , 60 ° 18 ′  W
Evensen Nunatak 0.31 Karl Julius Evensen (1851–1937), captain of the Hertha of the Larsen expedition 64 ° 59 ′  S , 60 ° 22 ′  W
Bull Nunatak 1.94 Henrik Johan Bull (1844–1930), head of the Antarctic expedition 1893–1895 65 ° 5 ′  S , 60 ° 23 ′  W
Pedersen Nunatak 4.24 Morten Pedersen, Captain of the Larsen Expedition's Castor 64 ° 56 ′  S , 60 ° 44 ′  W
Seal Islands 46.88  

Sometimes an island about 15 kilometers further north is also counted among the seal islands:

  • Lindenberginsel (or Lindenbergzuckerhut ) - named after Carl Lindenberg (1847-1921), a partner in the Woltereck & Robertson company, which held a significant equity stake in the Oceana shipping company ( 64 ° 55 ′  S , 59 ° 40 ′  W ).

Larsen also named an ocean island ; however, this survey is part of Robertson Island:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Nordenskjöld: Scientific results of the Swedish south polar expedition 1901-1903 . Vol. 1, Delivery 1: The Swedish South Polar Expedition and its geographic activity , Lithographic Institute of the General Staff, Stockholm 1911
  2. ↑ Satellite observes rapidly melting ice shelf in Antarctica , report dated April 10, 2012 on the European Space Agency's website , accessed on May 10, 2013
  3. ↑ a b Reinhard A. Krause, Ursula Rack (ed.): Journal, kept on board the steamship GROENLAND, Captain Ed. Dallmann, on the journey from Hamburg to d. Whale and Seal fishing on the coasts of South Shetland Islds. Coronation Isld. Trinity Land & Palmerland, run by Rud. Küper, Hamburg , Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven 2006 (PDF file; 4.91 MB).
  4. ↑ a b c O. Gonzales-Ferran: The Seal Nunataks: An Active Volcanic Group on the Larsen Ice Shelf, West Antarctica . In: RL Oliver, PR James, JB Jago (Ed.): Antarctic Earth Science , Cambridge University Press, 1983, ISBN 978-0-521-25836-4 , pp. 334-337 ( limited preview in Google Book Search , English )
  5. ↑ Seal Nunataks Group in the Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian Institution (English)
  6. ^ John Stewart: Antarctica - An Encyclopedia . Vol. 2, McFarland & Co., Jefferson and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-3590-6 , pp. 1551 f. (English)
  7. ↑ Standing Committee on Geographical Names (StAGN): Directory of German-language geographical names of the Antarctic (including coordinates), accessed on January 29, 2018
  8. ^ John Stewart: Antarctica - An Encyclopedia . McFarland & Co., Jefferson and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-3590-6 (English)
  9. ^ Seal Nunataks in the Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica , accessed on May 23, 2013

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