Horseshoe Island is an island long and wide occupying most of the entrance to
Square Bay, along the west coast of
Graham Land
Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee an ...
,
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 discovered and named by the
British Graham Land Expedition under
John Rymill
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
who mapped the area by land and from the air in 1936–37. Its name is indicative of the crescentic alignment of the peaks which give a comparable shape to the island.
Station Y
Lying at the north-western end of the island is Station Y , also known as Horseshoe Base, an inactive but relatively unaltered and completely equipped British
research station
Research stations are facilities where scientific investigation, collection, analysis and experimentation occurs. A research station is a facility that is built for the purpose of conducting scientific research. There are also many types of resear ...
of the late 1950s. It includes ‘Blaiklock’, a nearby
refuge hut. The station was occupied from 11 March 1955 to 21 August 1960, when its personnel were transferred to
Stonington Island
Stonington Island is a rocky island lying northeast of Neny Island in the eastern part of Marguerite Bay off the west coast of Graham Land, Antarctica. It is long from north-west to south-east and wide, yielding an area of . It was formerly ...
's
Station E. In 1969 it was reopened from 7 March to 11 July to complete local survey work. The site has been designated a
Historic Site or Monument (HSM 63), following a proposal by the United Kingdom to the
Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting.
Turkish Research Base
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
has announced the island as the chosen location to install its first research base in
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 ...
. Having a recent research program - the Turkish Polar Research Program - started in 2017, it has opened temporary facilities on the island in 2018, including a weather monitoring station and a camp. The plan is to build a permanent base for around 50 people, initially operating only during the summer, and later throughout all the year.
See also
*
List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands
*
Crime in Antarctica
*
Russet Pikes
References
External links
{{Historic Sites and Monuments in Antarctica, state=collapsed
Islands of Graham Land
Fallières Coast
Historic Sites and Monuments of Antarctica