Metchnikoff Point is a point forming the western extremity of

Pasteur Peninsula Pasteur Peninsula is a broad peninsula long in a north-south direction and ranging from wide between Guyou Bay and Bouquet Bay, forming the north end of Brabant Island in the Palmer Archipelago of Antarctica. Its interior is occupied by the no ...

in northern Brabant Island, in the Palmer Archipelago,

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 first charted by the

Third French Antarctic Expedition The French Antarctic Expedition is any of several French expeditions in Antarctica. First expedition In 1772, Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec and the naturalist Jean Guillaume Bruguière sailed to the Antarctic region in search of the fabled ...

, 1903–05, and named by

Jean-Baptiste Charcot Jean-Baptiste-Étienne-Auguste Charcot (15 July 1867 – 16 September 1936), born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a French scientist, medical doctor and polar scientist. His father was the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893). Life Jean-Ba ...

for Russian-born zoologist and bacteriologist

Élie Metchnikoff Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (russian: Илья Ильич Мечников; – 15 July 1916), also spelled Élie Metchnikoff, was a Russian zoologist best known for his pioneering research in immunology. Belkin, a Russian science historian, explains ...

, who succeeded

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...

as the director of the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (french: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines f ...

in Paris.

Historic site

A plaque is mounted at an elevation of 70 m on the crest of the

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...

separating the point from the adjacent glacier. The inscription reads:

This monument was built by François de Gerlache and other members of the Joint Services Expedition 1983-85 to commemorate the first landing on Brabant Island by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, 1897-99: Adrien de Gerlache (Belgium) leader, Roald Amundsen (Norway), Henryk Arctowski (Poland), Frederick Cook (USA) and Emile Danco (Belgium) camped nearby from 30 January to 6 February 1898.

It has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 45), following a proposal by Belgium to the

Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting russian: link=no, Договор об Антарктике es, link=no, Tratado Antártico , name = Antarctic Treaty System , image = Flag of the Antarctic Treaty.svgborder , image_width = 180px , caption ...

Maps

Antarctic Digital Database (ADD).
Scale 1:250000 topographic map of Antarctica. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). Since 1993, regularly upgraded and updated.
British Antarctic Territory.
Scale 1:200000 topographic map. DOS 610 Series, Sheet W 64 62. Directorate of Overseas Surveys, Tolworth, UK, 1980.
Brabant Island to Argentine Islands.
Scale 1:250000 topographic map. British Antarctic Survey, 2008.

References

Headlands of the Palmer Archipelago Historic Sites and Monuments of Antarctica Brabant Island {{BrabantIsland-geo-stub