The Melchior Islands are a group of many low, ice-covered islands lying near the center of
Dallmann Bay in the
Palmer Archipelago
Palmer Archipelago, also known as Antarctic Archipelago, Archipiélago Palmer, Antarktiske Arkipel or Palmer Inseln, is a group of islands off the northwestern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
It extends from Tower Island in the north to Anvers ...
, Antarctica. They were first seen but left unnamed by a German expedition under
Eduard Dallmann Eduard Dallmann (11 March 1830 – 23 December 1896) was a German whaler, trader, and Polar explorer.
Dallmann was born in Blumenthal, at-the-time a village just to the north of Bremen. He began his adventures as a young sailor at the age of&n ...
, 1873–74. The islands were resighted and roughly 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 ...
under
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 ...
, 1903–05.
Charcot named what he believed to be the large easternmost island in the group "Île Melchior" after
Vice Admiral Jules Melchior of the
French Navy
The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...
, but later surveys proved Charcot's Île Melchior to be two islands, now called
Eta Island and
Omega Island. The name Melchior Islands has since become established for the whole island group now described, of which Eta Island and Omega Island form the eastern part, while the
Sigma Islands mark the northern limit of the islands. The group was roughly surveyed in 1927 by
Discovery Investigations
The Discovery Investigations were a series of scientific cruises and shore-based investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Ocean. They were funded by the British Colonial Office and organised by the Discovery Committee in London, wh ...
personnel in the ''
RRS Discovery
The RRS ''Discovery'' is a barque-rigged auxiliary steamship built in Dundee, Scotland for Antarctic research. Launched in 1901, she was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in the United Kingdom. Her first mission was th ...
'', and was resurveyed by Argentine expeditions in 1942 and 1943, and again in 1948.
[
The semi-circular arrangement of ]Lambda
Lambda (}, ''lám(b)da'') is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoenician Lamed . Lambda gave rise ...
, Epsilon
Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or lunate ; el, έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was der ...
, Alpha
Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...
and Delta
Delta commonly refers to:
* Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet
* River delta, at a river mouth
* D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta")
* Delta Air Lines, US
* Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19
Delta may also ...
Islands forms a small harbor called Inner Harbor
The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and landmark of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It was described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as "the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the world". The ...
. Its descriptive name was probably given by Discovery Investigations
The Discovery Investigations were a series of scientific cruises and shore-based investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Ocean. They were funded by the British Colonial Office and organised by the Discovery Committee in London, wh ...
personnel who roughly surveyed the harbor in 1927. It was resurveyed by Argentine expeditions in 1942, 1943 and 1948.
Features
* Bremen Island
Bremen Island (german: Bremeninsel) is a or uninhabited island, part of the Melchior Islands in the Southern Ocean along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
A long channel ('' Bremenkanal'') separates Omega Island and Bremen Island. ...
* Harpun Rocks The Harpun Rocks () are submerged rocks lying southeast of Bills Point, Delta Island, in the Melchior Islands of the Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica. The name appears on a chart based upon a 1927 survey by Discovery Investigations personnel, but may ...
* Normanna Reef
* Pabellon Island
* Psi Islands
* Tripod Island
See also
References
External links
*
Islands of the Palmer Archipelago
{{PalmerArchipelago-geo-stub