Kerguelen Islands

The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a large igneous province mostly submerged in the southern Indian Ocean. They are among the most isolated places on Earth, located more than from Madagascar. The islands, along with Adélie Land, the Crozet Islands, Amsterdam and Saint Paul islands, and France's Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean, are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and are administered as a separate district.

The main island, Grande Terre, is in area, about three quarters of the size of Corsica, and is surrounded by a further 300 smaller islands and islets, forming an archipelago of . The climate is harsh and chilly with frequent high winds throughout the year. The surrounding seas are generally rough and they remain ice-free year-round. There are no indigenous inhabitants, but France maintains a permanent presence of 45 to 100 soldiers, scientists, engineers, and researchers.Sea Level Measurement and Analysis in the Western Indian Ocean
UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission There are no airports on the islands, so all travel to and from the outside world is conducted by ship.

History

Before being officially catalogued in 1772, the Kerguelen Islands appear as the "Ile de Nachtegal" on Philippe Buache's 1754 map entitled ''Carte des Terres Australes comprises entre le Tropique du Capricorne et le Pôle Antarctique où se voyent les nouvelles découvertes faites en 1739 au Sud du Cap de Bonne Esperance'' ('Map of the Southern Lands contained between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Pole, where the new discoveries made in 1739 to the south of the Cape of Good Hope may be seen'). It is possible this early name was after Abel Tasman's ship ''De Zeeuwsche Nachtegaal''. On the Buache map, "Ile de Nachtegal" is located at 43°S, 72°E, about 6° north and 2° east of the accepted location of Grande Terre.

The islands were officially discovered by the French navigator Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec on 12 February 1772. The next day, Charles de Boisguehenneuc landed and claimed the island for the French crown. Yves de Kerguelen organised a second expedition in 1773 and arrived at the ''"baie de l'Oiseau"'' by December 1773. On 6 January 1774 he commanded his lieutenant, Henri Pascal de Rochegude, to leave a message notifying any passers-by of the two passages and of the French claim to the islands.

Thereafter, a number of expeditions briefly visited the islands, including the third voyage of Captain James Cook in December 1776. Cook verified and confirmed the passage of de Kerguelen by discovering and annotating the message left by the French navigator.

Soon after its discovery, the archipelago was regularly visited by whalers and sealers (mostly British, American, and Norwegian) who hunted the resident populations of whales and seals to the point of near extinction, including fur seals in the 18th century and elephant seals in the 19th century. The sealing era lasted from 1781 to 1922 during which time 284 sealing visits are recorded, nine of which ended when the vessel was wrecked. Modern industrial sealing, associated with whaling stations, occurred intermittently between 1908 and 1956. Since the end of the whaling and sealing era, most of the islands' species have been able to increase their population again. Relics of the sealing period include try pots, hut ruins, graves and inscriptions.

In 1800, the spent eight months sealing and whaling around the islands. During this time Captain Robert Rhodes, her master, prepared a chart of the islands. That vessel returned to London in April 1801 with 450 tons of sea elephant oil.

In 1825, the British sealer John Nunn and three crew members from ''Favourite'' were shipwrecked on Kerguelen until they were rescued in 1827 by Captain Alexander Distant during his hunting campaign.

The islands were not completely surveyed until the Ross expedition of 1840.

The Australian James Kerguelen Robinson (1859–1914) was the first human born south of the Antarctic Convergence, on board the sealing ship ''Offley'' in Gulf of Morbihan (Royal Sound then), Kerguelen Island on 11 March 1859.

In 1874–1875, British, German, and U.S. expeditions visited Kerguelen to observe the transit of Venus. For the 1874 transit, George Biddell Airy of the U.K. Royal Observatory organised and equipped five expeditions to different parts of the world. Three of these were sent to the Kerguelen Islands and led by Stephen Joseph Perry, who set up his main observation station at Observatory Bay and two auxiliary stations, one at Thumb Peak led by Sommerville Goodridge, and the second at Supply Bay, led by Cyril Corbet. Observatory Bay was also used by the German Antarctic Expedition, led by Erich Dagobert von Drygalski in 1902–1903. In January 2007, an archaeological excavation was carried out at this site.

In 1877 the French started a coal mining operation, but soon abandoned it.

In 1892, due to German operations in the area, France sent the aviso ''Eure'', under Commander Lieutard, to reassert its claim over the Kerguelen Islands, the islands of Amsterdam and St. Paul, and the Crozet Archipelago. In 1924, it was decided to administer these territories (in addition to that portion of Antarctica claimed by France and known as Adélie Land) from Madagascar; as with all Antarctic territorial claims, France's possession on the continent is held in abeyance until a new international treaty is ratified that defines each claimant's rights and obligations.

In 1908, the French explorer Raymond Rallier du Baty made a privately funded expedition to the island. His autobiographical account of the adventure (1917 - '' 15,000 Miles in a Ketch''. Thomas Nelson and Sons: London) describes the months that he spent surveying the island and hunting seals to finance his expedition.

The German auxiliary cruiser called at Kerguelen during December 1940. During their stay the crew performed maintenance and replenished their water supplies. This ship's first fatality of the war occurred when a sailor, Bernhard Herrmann, fell while painting the funnel. He is buried in what is sometimes referred to as "the southernmost German war grave" of World War II.

Kerguelen has been continually occupied since 1950 by scientific research teams, with a population of 50 to 100 personnel frequently present. There is also a French satellite tracking station.

Until 1955, the Kerguelen Islands were administratively part of the French Colony of Madagascar and Dependencies. That same year, they collectively became known as ' (French Southern and Antarctic Lands) and were administratively part of the French '. In 2004 they were permanently transformed into their own entity (keeping the same name) but having inherited another group of five very remote tropical islands, '' '', which are also ruled by France and are dispersed widely throughout the southern Indian Ocean.

Grande Terre

The main island of the archipelago is called '. It measures east to west and north to south.

Port-aux-Français, a scientific base, is along the eastern shore of the Gulf of Morbihan on La Grande Terre. Facilities there include scientific-research buildings, a satellite tracking station, dormitories, a hospital, a library, a gymnasium, a pub, and the chapel of Notre-Dame des Vents.

The highest point is Mont Ross in the Gallieni Massif, which rises along the southern coast of the island and has an elevation of . The Cook Ice Cap (), France's largest glacier with an area of about , lies on the west-central part of the island. Overall, the glaciers of the Kerguelen Islands cover just over . Grande Terre has also numerous bays, inlets, fjords, and coves, as well as several peninsulas and promontories. The most important ones are listed below:
* Courbet Peninsula
* Péninsule Rallier du Baty
* Péninsule Gallieni
* Péninsule Loranchet
* Péninsule Jeanne d'Arc
* Presqu'île Ronarc'h
* Presqu'île de la Société de Géographie
* Presqu'île Joffre
* Presqu'île du Prince de Galles
* Presqu'île du Gauss
* Presqu'île Bouquet de la Grye
* Presqu'île d'Entrecasteaux
* Presqu'île du Bougainville
* Presqu'île Hoche

Notable localities

There are also a number of notable localities, all on La Grande Terre (see also the main map):
* Anse Betsy (Betsy Cove) is a former geomagnetic station on Baie Accessible (Accessible Bay), on the north coast of the Courbet Peninsula. On this site an astronomical and geomagnetic observatory was erected on 26 October 1874 by a German research expedition led by Georg Gustav Freiherr von Schleinitz. The primary goal of this station was the 1874 observation of the transit of Venus.
* Armor (Base Armor), established in 1983, is located west of Port-aux-Français at the bottom of Morbihan Gulf, for the acclimatization of salmon to the Kerguelen islands.
* Baie de l'Observatoire (Observatory Bay) is a former geomagnetic observation station, just west of Port-Aux-Français, on the eastern fringe of the Central Plateau, along the northern shore of the Golfe du Morbihan.
* Cabane Port-Raymond is a scientific camp at the head of a fjord cutting into the Courbet Peninsula from the south.
* Cap Ratmanoff is the easternmost point of the Kerguelens.
* La Montjoie is a scientific camp on the south shore of Baie Rocheuse, along the northwestern coast of the archipelago.
* Molloy (Pointe Molloy) is a former observatory west of the present-day Port-Aux-Français, on the northern shore of the Golfe du Morbihan (Kerguelen). An American expedition led by G. P. Ryan erected a station at this site on 7 September 1874. That station was also established to observe the 1874 transit of Venus.
* Port Bizet is a seismographic station on the northeastern coast of Île Longue. This also serves as the principal sheep farm for the island's resident flock of Bizet sheep.
* Port Christmas is a former geomagnetic station on Baie de l'Oiseau, in the extreme northwest of the Loranchet Peninsula. It was named by Captain James Cook, who re-discovered the islands and who anchored there on Christmas Day, 1776. This is also the place where Captain Cook coined the name "Desolation Islands" in reference to what he saw as a sterile landscape.
* Port Couvreux, a former whaling station, experimental sheep farm, and geomagnetic station is on Baie du Hillsborough, on the southeast coast of Presqu'île Bouquet de la Grye. Starting in 1912, sheep were raised here to create an economic base for future settlement. However, the attempt failed and the last inhabitants had to be evacuated, and the station abandoned, in 1931. The huts remain, as well as a graveyard with five anonymous graves. These are those of the settlers who were unable to survive in the harsh environment.
* Port Curieuse, a harbor on the west coast across Île de l'Ouest, was named after the ship ''La Curieuse'', which was used by Raymond Rallier du Baty on his second visit to the islands (1913–14).
* Port Douzième (Twelfth Port) is a hut and former geomagnetic station on the southern shore of the Golfe du Morbihan.
* Port Jeanne d'Arc is a former whaling station founded by a Norwegian whaling company in 1908, and a former geomagnetic station, and lies in the northwestern corner of Presqu'île Jeanne d'Arc, looking across the Buenos Aires passage to Île Longue ( northeast). The derelict settlement consists of four residential buildings with wooden walls and tin roofs, and a barn. One of the buildings was restored in 1977, and another in 2007.

From 1968 to 1981, a site just east of Port-aux-Français was a launching site for sounding rockets, some for French ( Dragon rockets), American ( Arcas) or French-Soviet ( Eridans) surveys, but at the end mainly for a Soviet program ( M-100).

Islands

The following is a list of the most important adjacent islands:
* Île Foch in the north of the archipelago, at , the second most important offlier in the Kerguelens.
* Île Saint-Lanne Gramont, is to the west of Île Foch in the Golfe Choiseul. It has an area of . Its highest point reaches .
* Île du Port, also in the north in the Golfe des Baleiniers is the fourth largest satellite island with an area of . Near its centre it reaches an elevation of .
* Île de l'Ouest (west coast, about )
* Île Longue (southeast, about )
* Îles Nuageuses (northwest, including île de Croÿ, île du Roland, îles Ternay, îles d'Après)
* Île de Castries
* Îles Leygues (north, including île de Castries, île Dauphine)
* Île Violette
* Île Australia (also known as ''Île aux Rennes'' – ''Reindeer Island'') (western part of the Golfe du Morbihan, area , elevation )
* Île Haute (western part of the Golfe du Morbihan, elevation )
* Île Mayès
* Îles du Prince-de-Monaco (south, in the Audierne bay)
* Îles de Boynes (four small islands south of Presqu'ile Rallier du Baty on the main island)
* Île Altazin (a small island in the Swains Bay)
* Île Gaby (a small island in the Swains Bay)
* Île de Croÿ (a small island off the coast of Grande Terre )
* Île du Roland (a small island off the coast of Grande Terre )

Economy

Principal activities on the Kerguelen Islands focus on scientific research, mostly earth sciences and biology.

The former sounding rocket range to the east of Port-aux-Français is currently the site of a SuperDARN radar.

Since 1992, the French Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) has operated a satellite and rocket tracking station, located east of Port-aux-Français. CNES needed a tracking station in the Southern Hemisphere, and the French government required that it be located on French territory, rather than in a populated, but foreign, place like Australia or New Zealand.

Agricultural activities were limited until 2007 to raising sheep (about 3,500 Bizet sheep, a breed that is rare in mainland France) on Longue Island for consumption by the occupants of the base, as well as small quantities of vegetables in a greenhouse within the immediate vicinity of the main French base. There are also feral rabbits and sheep that can be hunted, as well as wild birds.

There are also five fishing boats and vessels, owned by fishermen on Réunion Island (a ''department'' of France about north) who are licensed to fish within the archipelago's exclusive economic zone.

Geology

The Kerguelen Islands form an emerged part of the submerged Kerguelen Plateau, which has a total area nearing . The plateau was built by volcanic eruptions associated with the Kerguelen hotspot, and now lies on the Antarctic Plate.

The major part of the volcanic formations visible on the islands is characteristic of an effusive volcanism, which caused a trap rock formation to start emerging above the level of the ocean 35 million years ago. The accumulation is of a considerable amount; basalt flows, each with a thickness of three to ten metres, stacked on top of each other, sometimes up to a depth of . This form of volcanism creates a monumental relief shaped as stairs of pyramids.

Other forms of volcanism are present locally, such as the strombolian volcano Mont Ross, and the volcano-plutonic complex on the Rallier du Baty Peninsula. Various veins and extrusions of lava such as trachytes, trachyphonolites, and phonolites are common all over the islands.

No eruptive activity has been recorded in historic times, but some fumaroles are still active in the south-west of Grande-Terre island.

A few lignite strata, trapped in basalt flows, reveal fossilised araucarian fragments, dated at about 14 million years of age.

Glaciation caused the depression and tipping phenomena which created the gulfs at the north and east of the archipelago. Erosion caused by the glacial and fluvial activity carved out the valleys and fjords; erosion also created conglomerate detrital complexes, and the plain of the Courbet Peninsula.

The islands are part of a submerged microcontinent called the Kerguelen Subcontinent. The microcontinent emerged substantially above sea level for three periods between 100 million years ago and 20 million years ago. The so-called Kerguelen Subcontinent may have had tropical flora and fauna about 50 million years ago. The Kerguelen Subcontinent finally sank 20 million years ago and is now below sea level. Kerguelen's sedimentary rocks are similar to ones found in Australia and India, indicating they were all once connected. Scientists hope that studying the Kerguelen sub-continent will help them discover how Australia, India, and Antarctica broke apart.

Climate

Kerguelen's climate is oceanic, cold, and extremely windswept. Under the Köppen climate classification, Kerguelen's climate is considered to be an ''ET'' or tundra climate, which is technically a form of polar climate, as the average temperature in the warmest month is below . ''(direct
Final Revised Paper
'' Comparable climates include the Aleutian Islands, Campbell Island (New Zealand), Falkland Islands, Iceland, northern Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia), Labrador (Canada), and Wollaston Islands (Chile).

All climate readings come from the Port-aux-Français base, which has one of the more favourable climates in Kerguelen because of its proximity to the coast and its location in a gulf sheltered from the wind.

The average annual temperature is with an annual range of around . The warmest months of the year include January and February, with average temperatures between . The coldest month of the year is August with an average temperature of . Annual high temperatures rarely surpass , while temperatures in winter have never been recorded below at sea level.

Kerguelen receives frequent precipitation, with snow throughout the year as well as rain. Port-aux-Français receives a modest amount of precipitation ( per annum) compared to the west coast which receives an estimated three times as much precipitation per year.

The mountains are frequently covered in snow but can thaw very quickly in rain. Over the course of several decades, many permanent glaciers have shown signs of retreat, with some smaller ones having disappeared completely.

The west coast receives almost continuous wind at an average speed of because the islands are between the Roaring Forties and the Furious Fifties. Wind speeds of are common and can even reach .

Waves up to high are common, but there are many sheltered places where ships can anchor.

Flora and fauna

The islands are part of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands tundra ecoregion that includes several subantarctic islands. Plant life is mainly limited to grasses, mosses, and lichens, although the islands are also known for the indigenous, edible Kerguelen cabbage, a good source of vitamin C to sailor, mariners. The main indigenous animals are insects along with large populations of ocean-going seabirds, Pinniped, seals, and penguins.

The wildlife is particularly vulnerable to introduced species; one particular problem has been cats. The main island is the home of a well-established feral cat population, descended from ships' cats. They survive on sea birds and the feral rabbits that were introduced to the islands. There are also populations of mouflon, wild sheep (''Ovis orientalis orientalis'') and reindeer.

In the 1950s and 1960s, French geologist Edgar Aubert de la Rüe, Edgar Albert de la Rue began to introduce several species of salmonids. Of the seven species introduced, only brook trout and brown trout survived to establish wild populations.

Coleoptera

* Carabidae
** species:Oopterus soledadinus, ''Oopterus soledadinus'' [introduced]
* Hydraenidae
** species:Meropathus chuni, ''Meropathus chuni'' [endemic]

In popular culture

The islands appear in a number of fictional works. The title character in Edgar Allan Poe's 1838 novel ''The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'' visits the islands. French writer Jules Verne's 1897 novel ''An Antarctic Mystery'' offers a follow up to Poe's book, and revisits the Kerguelen Islands.

The 1874 short story "The Tachypomp" by Edward Page Mitchell tells of a hole through the center of the Earth with one end in the United States and the other in "Kerguellen's Land" (which is roughly Antipodes, antipodal to the United States and Canada).

The 1880 collection ''Songs from the Mountains'' by the Australian poet Henry Kendall (poet), Henry Kendall contains the poem ''Beyond Kerguelen''.Austlit – ''Songs from the Mountains''
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In Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's poem "McAndrew's Hymn" – about a ship's engineer – there are the lines: "Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington – ye need an engineer.
Fail there – ye've time to weld your shaft – ay, eat it, ere ye're spoke,
Or make Kerguelen under sail – three Jiggermast, jiggers burned wi' smoke!"

Henry De Vere Stacpoole set his 1919 novel ''The Beach of Dreams'' on the islands.

The Kerguelen Islands were the setting for a post-Second World War confrontation between W. E. Johns's recurring hero, Biggles, and the crew of a gold bullion-bearing German U-boat, in the 1948 novel ''Biggles' Second Case''.

French author Jean-Paul Kauffmann produced a non-fiction account of his 1991 journey to the islands, titled ''The Arch of Kerguelen: Voyage to the Islands of Desolation''.

The islands serve as a main location in the 1998 novel Kilo Class (novel), ''Kilo Class'' by Patrick Robinson (author), Patrick Robinson.

In 2000 British journalist and former Conservative MP Matthew Parris spent four months on Kerguelen, staying with the researchers at Port-aux-Français. A series of articles were published in ''The Times'' in which Parris charted his visit, and a documentary ''To The Ends of Earth: Dreaming on Desolation Island'' was produced for UK television, which aired on Channel 4.

The islands inspired the 2008 song "Sparks of Ancient Light, The Loneliest Place on the Map" by singer Al Stewart.

See also

* Administrative divisions of France
* List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands
* List of islands of France#French overseas islands, List of French overseas islands
* Overseas France

References

External links

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* Including a toponymy index.

Personal site with many pictures


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{{Authority control

Kerguelen Islands,
Archipelagoes of the Indian Ocean
Archipelagoes of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands
Tundra
Antarctic ecoregions
Seal hunting
Subantarctic islands
Volcanic islands
Volcanoes of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands
Geography of the Kerguelen Islands, 01
Lists of coordinates
French Southern and Antarctic Lands