Meteorite Island ( da, Meteorit Ø) is an
island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
in
Baffin Bay, in
Avannaata municipality, off NW
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
.
The
Cape York Meteorite
The Cape York meteorite, also known as the Innaanganeq meteorite, is one of the largest known iron meteorites, classified as a medium octahedrite in chemical group IIIAB. In addition to many small fragments, at least eight large fragments with a ...
fell thousands of years ago on the southern shore of this island.
Geography
Meteorite Island is quite barren and desolate. It lies off the shore of
Meteor Bay
A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space.
Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as micr ...
and is the largest of the group part of a small chain of coastal islands formed by Meteorite Island,
Salve Island,
George Island
George Island () is the second largest of the Speedwell Island Group in the Falkland Islands with a land area of . It lies south of Speedwell Island and south west of East Falkland, and is separated from Lafonia by Eagle Passage. The islan ...
,
Bushnan Island and a small islet. This chain of islands is located between
Cape York and
Cape Melville
Cape Melville is a headland on the eastern coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. To its west lies Princess Charlotte Bay. It is part of the Cape Melville National Park. Cape Melville was named Stoney Cape in 1815 by Lieutenant Charles ...
.
The Inuit village of
Savissivik
Savissivik (West Greenlandic; old spelling: ''Savigsivik'') or Havighivik ( Inuktun) is a settlement in the Avannaata municipality in northern Greenland. Located on Meteorite Island, off the northern shores of Melville Bay, the settlement had 5 ...
is located at the southwestern end of Meteorite Island. The settlement has a heliport,
Savissivik Heliport
Savissivik Heliport is a heliport in Savissivik, a village on Meteorite Island, off the shores of the northern end of Melville Bay in Avannaata municipality, northern Greenland. The heliport is considered a ''helistop'', and is served by Air Gr ...
and in 2010 it had 66 inhabitants.
In the
Greenlandic language, the name of the settlement ''Savissivik'' means 'place of meteorite iron' (''savik'' = iron/knife),
quarkexpeditions.com
/ref> alluding to the numerous meteorites from 10,000 years ago that have been found in the area.iron
Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...
from the meteorite attracted migrating Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
from Arctic Canada
Northern Canada, colloquially the North or the Territories, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories and ...
.
See also
* List of islands of Greenland
References
External links
The small Inuit village of Savissivik on Meteorite Island. Northwest Greenland
Islands of Greenland
Avannaata
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