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Weddell Islands
The Weddell Islands are a group of small islands and rocks lying south of Saddle Island and lying north of the western end of Laurie Island, in the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica. They were probably first seen during a joint cruise by Captains Nathaniel B. Palmer and George Powell in December 1821. The name first appears on James Weddell's chart resulting from his exploration of the South Orkney Islands in 1823. Important Bird Area A 30 ha site, comprising the largest island and some smaller islands immediately to the west, with the intervening marine area, has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports breeding colonies totalling some 28,000 pairs of ''Pygoscelis'' penguins, estimated from 2011 satellite imagery, breeding along the lower slopes of the coastline. Other birds confirmed as breeding in the area include Cape and snow petrel The snow petrel (''Pagodroma nivea'') is the only member of the genus ''Pagodr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saddle Island, South Orkney Islands
Saddle Island () is an island nearly long, consisting of twin summits which are almost separated by a narrow channel strewn with boulders, lying north of the west end of Laurie Island in the South Orkney Islands. It was discovered and charted in 1823 by British sealer James Weddell, and named by him for its peculiar shape. See also * Composite Antarctic Gazetteer * List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands * List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S * SCAR * Territorial claims in Antarctica Seven sovereign states – Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom – have made eight territorial claims in Antarctica. These countries have tended to place their Antarctic scientific observation and st ... References External links Islands of the South Orkney Islands {{SouthOrkneys-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurie Island
Laurie Island is the second largest of the South Orkney Islands. The island is claimed by both Argentina as part of Argentine Antarctica, and the United Kingdom as part of the British Antarctic Territory. However, under the Antarctic Treaty System all sovereignty claims are frozen, as the island lies south of the parallel 60°. Buchanan Point at the north-eastern end of the island, with Cape Whitson on its south coast, are Important Bird Areas. History Laurie Island was discovered by Captains George Powell and Nathaniel Palmer in the course of their 1821 expedition to the South Atlantic. Richard Holmes Laurie used Powell's observations to create a map of the island, and subsequently, the island was named after him. Two years later, James Weddell mapped the island for the second time, though his charts turned out to be much less accurate than Powell's charts. Weddell attempted to rename the island to Melville Island for the 2nd Viscount Melville, but the name failed to stick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Orkney Islands
The South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean, about north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula''Antarctica: Secrets of the Southern Continent'' p. 122 David McGonigal, 2009 and south-west of . They have a total area of about . The islands are claimed both by Britain (as part of the since 1962, previously as a [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of . Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of . Antarctica is, on average, the coldest, driest, and windiest of the continents, and it has the highest average elevation. It is mainly a polar desert, with annual precipitation of over along the coast and far less inland. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen in Antarctica, which, if melted, would raise global sea levels by almost . Antarctica holds the record for the lowest measured temperature on Earth, . The coastal regions can reach temperatures over in summer. Native species of animals include mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Where vegetation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathaniel B
, nickname = {{Plainlist, * Nat * Nate , footnotes = Nathaniel is an English variant of the biblical Greek name Nathanael. People with the name Nathaniel * Nathaniel Archibald (1952–2018), American basketball player * Nate Archibald (born 1948), American basketball player * Nathaniel Ayers (born 1951), American musician who is the subject of the 2009 film ''The Soloist'' * Nathaniel Bacon (1647–1676), Virginia colonist who instigated Bacon's Rebellion * Nathaniel Prentice Banks (1816–1894), American politician and American Civil War General * Nat Bates (born 1931), two-term mayor of Richmond, California * Nathaniel Berhow (2003–2019), perpetrator of the Saugus High School shooting in 2019 * Nathaniel Bowditch (1773–1838), American mathematician, father of modern maritime navigation * Nathaniel Buzolic (born 1983), Australian actor * Nathaniel Chalobah (born 1994), English footballer * Nathaniel Clayton (1833–1895), British politician * Nat King Cole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Powell (mariner)
George Powell (1794–1824) was an English sealer, explorer and amateur naturalist. He captained three sealing expeditions to the Antarctic Ocean between 1818 and 1822. Powell was born in London. During his first expedition, in 1818 and 1819, he captained the sloop ''Dove'' and visited South Georgia and Kerguelen Islands. His second expedition, captaining ''Eliza'', lasted from 1819 until 1821, during which time he visited the Falkland Islands and the South Shetland Islands. In 1821 and 1822 he took both ''Dove'', which he captained, and ''Eliza'', captained by John Wright, on another sealing expedition to the South Shetland Islands, for which he produced a very fine chartL. Ivanov and N. Ivanova. Sealing period. In''The World of Antarctica''.Generis Publishing, 2022. pp. 78-84. based on his own observations of the north coast of the group and the observations of others for the southern coast. On 6 December 1821, he co-discovered the South Orkney Islands along with American N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Weddell
James Weddell (24 August 1787 – 9 September 1834) was a British sailor, navigator and seal hunter who in February 1823 sailed to latitude of 74° 15′ S—a record 7.69 degrees or 532 statute miles south of the Antarctic Circle—and into a region of the Southern Ocean that later became known as the Weddell Sea. Early life He was born in Ostend on the Belgian coast, the son of a Scottish sea captain (captains were permitted their wives at sea). He was apprenticed as a seaman (this normally started at age eight) and so received little education, but clearly could at least read and write. He originally worked on merchant ships on the north-east Scottish coast. He entered the merchant service very early in his life and was apparently bound to the master of a Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle Collier (ship type), collier (a coal transport vessel) for some years. About 1805 he shipped on board a merchantman trading to the West Indies, making several voyages t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Important Bird Area
An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife International. There are over 13,000 IBAs worldwide. These sites are small enough to be entirely conserved and differ in their character, habitat or ornithological importance from the surrounding habitat. In the United States the Program is administered by the National Audubon Society. Often IBAs form part of a country's existing protected area network, and so are protected under national legislation. Legal recognition and protection of IBAs that are not within existing protected areas varies within different countries. Some countries have a National IBA Conservation Strategy, whereas in others protection is completely lacking. History In 1985, following a specific request from the European Economic Community, Birdlife International ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BirdLife International
BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding important sites for birds, maintaining and restoring key bird habitats, and empowering conservationists worldwide. It has a membership of more than 2.5 million people across 116 country partner organizations, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Wild Bird Society of Japan, the National Audubon Society and American Bird Conservancy. BirdLife International has identified 13,000 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas and is the official International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List authority for birds. As of 2015, BirdLife International has established that 1,375 bird species (13% of the total) are threatened with extinction ( critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable). BirdLife International p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pygoscelis
The genus ''Pygoscelis'' ("rump-legged") contains three living species of penguins collectively known as "brush-tailed penguins". Taxonomy Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA evidence suggests the genus split from other penguins around 38 million years ago, about 2 million years after the ancestors of the genus ''Aptenodytes''. In turn, the Adelie penguins split off from the other members of the genus around 19 million years ago. ;Extant species A 2020 study found that the gentoo penguin may actually comprise a species complex of 4 similar but genetically distinct species: the northern gentoo penguin (''P. papua''), the southern gentoo penguin (''P. ellsworthi''), the eastern gentoo penguin (''P. taeniata''), and the newly-described South Georgia gentoo penguin (''P. poncetii''). However, in 2021 the International Ornithological Congress recognized these as being subspecies of ''P. papua''. A study has estimated that there are about 3.79 million pairs of Adélie, 387,000 pairs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snow Petrel
The snow petrel (''Pagodroma nivea'') is the only member of the genus ''Pagodroma.'' It is one of only three birds that has been seen at the Geographic South Pole, along with the Antarctic petrel and the south polar skua, which have the most southerly breeding sites of any bird, inland in Antarctica. Taxonomy The snow petrel was described in 1777 by the German naturalist Georg Forster in his book ''A Voyage Round the World''. He had accompanied James Cook on Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. We particularly observed a petrel, about the size of a pigeon, entirely white, with a black bill and blueish feet; it constantly appeared about the icy masses, and may be looked upon as a sure fore-runner of ice. Forster placed the snow petrel in the genus ''Procellaria'' that had been erected for the petrels by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 and coined the binomial name ''Procellaria nivea''. The snow petrel is now the only species placed in the genus ''Pagodroma'' that was introduced for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
