Aspland Island is a small

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

west of Gibbs Island in the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 1 ...

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 cont ...

. The name dates back to at least 1821. Moonlight Point () is the northwest point of Aspland Island. It was so named by a Joint Services Expedition to the Elephant Island Group (JSEEIG) party canoeing from

O'Brien Island O'Brien Island is a small rocky island in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It lies south-west of Aspland Island and rises to 540 m. A strong marine channel, named Tasman Rip, runs between O'Brien Island and Eadie Island. The ...

to Aspland Island on January 3, 1977, because the point appeared silhouetted against a full moon. The name was approved by the

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

in 1980.

Birds

The island forms part of the Aspland Island and

Eadie Island Eadie Island is an island long which lies between Aspland Island and O'Brien Island, in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. A strong marine channel, named Tasman Rip, runs between Eadie Island and O'Brien Island. The island was first c ...

Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because both islands support large

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

of chinstrap penguins and

southern fulmar The southern fulmar (''Fulmarus glacialoides'') is a seabird of the Southern Hemisphere. Along with the northern fulmar, ''F. glacialis'', it belongs to the fulmar genus ''Fulmarus'' in the family Procellariidae, the true petrels. It is also kno ...

References

Islands of the South Shetland Islands Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Penguin colonies Seabird colonies {{SouthShetlands-geo-stub

Birds

See also

References