Lynch Island is an island lying in the eastern part of

Marshall Bay Marshall Bay () is a bay , lying between Cape Vik and Cape Hansen on the south side of Coronation Island, in the South Orkney Islands, Antarctica. It was roughly charted in 1912–13 by Petter Sørlle, a Norwegian whaling captain. The bay was re ...

, close off the south coast of Coronation Island in the

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 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 ...

History

The island was roughly charted in 1912–13 by Petter Sørlle, a Norwegian whaling captain, and surveyed in 1933 by Discovery Investigations personnel. The island was resurveyed in 1948–49 by the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of global issues, and to provide an active presence in the Antarctic on ...

and named 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 ...

for Thomas Lynch, an American sealer who visited the South Orkney Islands in the schooner ''Express'' in 1880.

Antarctic Specially Protected Area

The island has been designated an

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 110) for its biological values, especially its relatively luxuriant plant communities. The continent's only two

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

Antarctic hair grass ''Deschampsia antarctica'', the Antarctic hair grass, is one of two flowering plants native to Antarctica, the other being '' Colobanthus quitensis'' (Antarctic pearlwort). They mainly occur on the South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Island ...

and

Antarctic pearlwort ''Colobanthus quitensis'', the Antarctic pearlwort, is one of two native flowering plants found in the Antarctic region. It has yellow flowers and grows about 5 cm (two inches) tall, with a cushion-like growth habit that gives it a moss-like appe ...

, are abundant. The soils associated with the grass swards contain a rich

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

fauna.

References

Islands of the South Orkney Islands Antarctic Specially Protected Areas {{SouthOrkneys-geo-stub

History

Antarctic Specially Protected Area

See also

References