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White Island is an island in the
White Island is an island in the Ross Archipelago
Ross Archipelago () is a name for that group of islands which, together with the ice shelf between them, forms the eastern and southern boundaries of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. The most northerly is Beaufort Island, then comes Ross Island, the De ...
of 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 is long, protruding through the Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (, an area of roughly and about across: about the size of France). It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than long, and between hi ...
immediately east of Black Island. It was discovered by the Discovery Expedition
The ''Discovery'' Expedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839–184 ...
(1901–04) and so named by them because of the mantle of snow which covers it. Some 142 km2 of shelf ice adjoining the north-west coast of 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 137) because it supports an isolated small breeding population of Weddell seal
The Weddell seal (''Leptonychotes weddellii'') is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing ...
s.
White Island consists of two Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
shield volcano
A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a warrior's shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid (low viscosity) lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more v ...
es overlain by volcanic cone
Volcanic cones are among the simplest volcanic landforms. They are built by ejecta from a volcanic vent, piling up around the vent in the shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and ...
s. The last known eruption occurred 0.17 million years ago.
See also
* List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands *Mount Nipha
White Island is an island in the Ross Archipelago of Antarctica. It is long, protruding through the Ross Ice Shelf immediately east of Black Island. It was discovered by the Discovery Expedition (1901–04) and so named by them because of the m ...
, standing almost precisely in the center of White Island
* Speden Bench
White Island is an island in the Ross Archipelago of Antarctica. It is long, protruding through the Ross Ice Shelf immediately east of Black Island. It was discovered by the Discovery Expedition (1901–04) and so named by them because of the m ...
, on the west of White Island
References
External links
* Pleistocene shield volcanoes Polygenetic shield volcanoes {{RossDependency-geo-stub