The Fildes Peninsula is a long peninsula that forms the south-western end of King George 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 195 ...

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 contine ...

. It was named from association with nearby

Fildes Strait Fildes Strait is a strait which extends in a general east-west direction between King George Island and Nelson Island, in the South Shetland Islands. This strait has been known to sealers in the area since about 1822, but at that time it appeared ...

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 1960; the strait was likely named for

Robert Fildes The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

, a British sealer of the 1800s.

Description

The peninsula is the most extensively snow-free coastal area in summer on the island, most of which is permanently covered by ice. Its southeastern end is a point called Halfthree Point. It was charted and named by

Discovery Investigations The Discovery Investigations were a series of scientific cruises and shore-based investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Ocean. They were funded by the British Colonial Office and organised by the Discovery Committee in London, wh ...

personnel on the ''

Discovery II ''Discovery II'', built in 1971, is the second of three Discovery sternwheel riverboats operated by the Riverboat Discovery company. ''Discovery II'' is still in use as a tour vessel on the Chena and Tanana rivers near Fairbanks, Alaska. Hist ...

'' in 1935. It is part of the Fildes Peninsula

Antarctic Specially Protected Area An Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) is an area on the continent of Antarctica, or on nearby islands, which is protected by scientists and several different international bodies. The protected areas were established in 1961 under the Antarct ...

(ASPA 125), designated as such because of its

paleontological Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (geology), epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes t ...

values. It is separated at its tip from Nelson Island by Fildes Strait, only 370 m wide at its narrowest. It is bounded on its south-east coast by

Maxwell Bay Maxwell Bay is a waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It lies off the southern coast of Devon Island in the eastern high Arctic. Like Croker Bay to the east, it is an arm of Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait. Maxwell Bay was named b ...

, which is also known as Fildes Bay, and on its north-west by the open waters of the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

. Geologically, the peninsula is a tableland made up of old coastal landforms, with numerous rocky outcrops and an average height of 30 m above sea level. Research stations on the peninsula include

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

’s

Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva is the most important Antarctic base of Chile. It is located at Fildes Peninsula, an ice-free area, in front of Fildes Bay, west of King George Island, South Shetland Islands. Situated alongside the Escuder ...

and

Profesor Julio Escudero Base Professor Julio Escudero Base is a permanent Chilean Antarctic research base. It is located on King George Island near Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva and the civilian settlement of Villa Las Estrellas. It lies within the Antártica Chile ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

’s

Great Wall Station The Great Wall Station () is the first Chinese research station in Antarctica and opened on 20 February 1985. It lies on the Fildes Peninsula on King George Island, and is about from the Chilean Frei Montalva Station, and from Cape Horn. The ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

’s

Bellingshausen Station Bellingshausen Station (Russian: станция Беллинсгаузен) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) Antarctic station at Collins Harbour, on King George Island of the South Shetland Islands. It was one of the first research stations fou ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

’s

Artigas Base The General Artigas Station ( es, Base Científica Antártica Artigas), also referred to as the Artigas Base is the larger of the two Uruguayan scientific research stations in Antarctica, the other one being Elichiribehety Base. It is one of ...

. Running E-W between Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, and Nelson Island, was known to the nineteenth-century sealers; charted and named Filde's icStrait or Sound by Capt. Robert Fildes, English sealing captain from Liverpool, who visited the South Shetland Islands in the brig Cora, 1820–21, and in the brig Robert, 1821–22, and who prepared the first comprehensive sailing directions for the islands (Fildes, 1821c).

Antarctic specially protected area

Eight separate sites on the peninsula have been collectively designated an

(ASPA 125) largely because of their

values. The area contains outcrops with

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s dating from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

to the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...

, including

footprints Footprints are the impressions or images left behind by a person walking or running. Hoofprints and pawprints are those left by animals with hoof, hooves or paws rather than foot, feet, while "shoeprints" is the specific term for prints made by ...

of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals as well as plant fossils with impressions of leaves and fronds, trunks, and pollen grains and spores. Sites comprising the ASPA are Fossil Hill, Holz Stream, Glacier Dome Bellingshausen, Halfthree Point,

Suffield Point Suffield Point is the south-west entrance point of Norma Cove, Fildes Peninsula, on King George Island in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It was charted in the course of the Discovery Investigations, 1933–35, and named after boatswai ...

, Fossil Point, Gradzinski Cove and Skua Cove.

References

Antarctic Specially Protected Areas Peninsulas of King George Island (South Shetland Islands) Paleontological sites of Antarctica {{KingGeorgeIslandAQ-geo-stub

Description

Antarctic specially protected area

See also

References