Penguin Island (also known as Georges Island, Île Pingouin, Isla Pingüino, and Penguin Isle) is one of the smaller of the
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 1 ...
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 cont ...
.
History
Penguin Island was sighted in January 1820 by a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
expedition under
Edward Bransfield
Edward Bransfield (c. 1785 – 31 October 1852) was an Irish sailor who became an officer in the British Royal Navy, serving as a master on several ships, after being impressed into service in Ireland at the age of 18. He is noted for his par ...
, and so named by him because
penguins occupied the shores of the island.
Description
The island, which is ice-free and oval shaped, wide by long, lies close off the south coast of the much larger
King George Island, and marks the eastern side of the entrance to
King George Bay. It has a shoreline of low cliffs, with a beach on the north coast providing access. There is a small lake in the north-east.
[ It is capped by Deacon Peak, a basaltic scoria cone. Deacon Peak was last thought to be active about 300 years ago. Petrel Crater, a maar crater, is located on the east side of the island, and is thought to have last erupted in or around 1905.
]
Geology
The island is the top of a Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological 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 finally confirmed in ...
-Recent stratovolcano within the Bransfield Basin. The volcano has a base diameter of 8 km, and a height of 350 m.
Penguin island is the top third of the volcano. The crater is approximately 150 meters deep and is found above the vent of the volcano. There are two small black volcanic plugs visible in the red cinder cone crater. The Holocene volcano is related to the Shetland subduction zone north of the volcano.[Joseph Holliday, Professor of Geology, El Camino College]
Important Bird Area
The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a wide range of seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...
s including a breeding colony of over 600 pairs of southern giant petrels. Other birds nesting at the site include Adélie and chinstrap penguins, Antarctic tern
The Antarctic tern (''Sterna vittata'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. It ranges throughout the southern oceans and is found on small islands around Antarctica as well as on the shores of the mainland. Its diet consists primarily of small fis ...
s and kelp gull
The kelp gull (''Larus dominicanus''), also known as the Dominican gull, is a gull that breeds on coasts and islands through much of the Southern Hemisphere. The nominate ''L. d. dominicanus'' is the subspecies found around South America, part ...
s. Weddell and southern elephant seal
The southern elephant seal (''Mirounga leonina'') is one of two species of elephant seals. It is the largest member of the clade Pinnipedia and the order Carnivora, as well as the largest extant marine mammal that is not a cetacean. It gets its ...
s regularly haul out.
See also
* List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands
* List of volcanoes in Antarctica
This is a list of volcanoes in Antarctica.
Table
A 2017 study claimed to have found 138 volcanoes, of which 91 were previously unknown. Some volcanoes are entirely under the ice sheet. Unconfirmed volcanoes are not included in the table below.
...
References
External links
Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty Visitor Guidelines and island description
Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
Information on the South Shetland Islands
including Penguin Island.
Pleistocene stratovolcanoes
Holocene stratovolcanoes
Volcanoes of the South Shetland Islands
Maars of Antarctica
Islands of King George Island (South Shetland Islands)
Important Bird Areas of Antarctica
Seabird colonies
Penguin colonies
{{KingGeorgeIslandAQ-geo-stub