Scott Island is a small uninhabited island of volcanic origin in the

Ross Sea The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica, between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land and within the Ross Embayment, and is the southernmost sea on Earth. It derives its name from the British explorer James Clark Ross who vi ...

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

, northeast of Cape Adare, the northeastern extremity of

Victoria Land Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. It ...

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 north–south, and between and wide, reaching a height of and covering an area of .

Haggits Pillar Haggits Pillar is a stack high in the South Pacific Ocean at the northwestern edge of the Ross Sea, lying west of Scott Island and some north-northeast of Cape Adare, Victoria Land, Antarctica. It measures in diameter, yielding an area of l ...

, a stack reaching in height and measuring in diameter, yielding an area of less than , is located west of the island. The island has two small coves with beaches, the rest of the island being surrounded by high cliffs. One of the coves is on the northeastern coast and the other opposite Haggitts Pillar on the western coast of the island. The island was discovered and landed upon on 25 December 1902 by captain William Colbeck, commander of the SY ''Morning'', the relief ship for Robert Scott's expedition. Colbeck originally planned to name the island Markham Island, after Sir

Clements Markham Sir Clements Robert Markham (20 July 1830 – 30 January 1916) was an English geographer, explorer and writer. He was secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) between 1863 and 1888, and later served as the Society's president for ...

, but later decided to name it after Scott. Haggits Pillar is named after Colbeck's mother's family name, Haggit. In 2006, a mapping expedition to the Ross Sea found the islands north of their previously determined position.The changing map of Antarctica

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research or NIWA ( mi, Taihoro Nukurangi), is a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. Established in 1992, NIWA conducts research across a broad range of disciplines in the environmental scien ...

, Coasts & Oceans Update, No. 17, 2007 Scott Island is part of the

Ross Dependency The Ross Dependency is a region of Antarctica defined by a sector originating at the South Pole, passing along longitudes 160° east to 150° west, and terminating at latitude 60° south. It is claimed by New Zealand, a claim accepted only b ...

, claimed by

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

(see

Territorial claims of Antarctica Seven sovereign states – Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom – have made eight territorial claims in Antarctica. These countries have tended to place their Antarctic scientific observation and st ...

). There was an

automatic weather station An automatic weather station (AWS) is an automated version of the traditional weather station, either to save human labour or to enable measurements from remote areas. An AWS will typically consist of a weather-proof enclosure containing the data ...

on the island from December 1987 to March 1999. The records show an average temperature of a few °C (°F) below in summer, and down to in winter. On 12 February 2009 Andrew Perry and Molly Kendall, crew members of the

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is a non-profit, marine conservation activism organization based in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, in the United States. Sea Shepherd employs direct action tactics to achieve its g ...

's ship MY ''Steve Irwin'', were married on the island by captain

Paul Watson Paul Franklin Watson (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian-American conservation and environmental activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. Th ...

References

External links

Birds observed at Scott Island, Ross Sea, Antarctica
*Gerhard Wörner and Giovanni Orsi (1990)
Volcanic observations on Scott Island in the Antarctic Ocean
''Polarforschung'', 60 (2), 82–83. {{coord, 67, 22.7, S, 179, 54.7, W, display=title Islands of the Ross Dependency Uninhabited islands of New Zealand

See also

References

External links