Spaatz Island is a large ice-covered
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 ...
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 ...
. It lies south west of
Alexander Island
Alexander Island, which is also known as Alexander I Island, Alexander I Land, Alexander Land, Alexander I Archipelago, and Zemlja Alexandra I, is the largest island of Antarctica. It lies in the Bellingshausen Sea west of Palmer Land, Antarc ...
and west of the base of the
Antarctic Peninsula, close to the coast of
Palmer Land, east of
Smyley Island. It is long and wide, and covers an area of around .
The north side of the island forms a portion of the south margin of
Ronne Entrance; the remainder of the island is surrounded by the ice shelves of
Stange Sound
Stange Sound () is a sound about 60 nautical miles (110 km) long and 25 nautical miles (46 km) wide along the coast of Palmer Land, Antarctica. An ice shelf occupies the sound, which is bounded on the west by Smyley and Case Islands, o ...
and
George VI Sound
George VI Sound or Canal Jorge VI or Canal Presidente Sarmiento or Canal Seaver or King George VI Sound or King George the Sixth Sound is a major bay/ fault depression, 300 miles (483 km) long and mainly covered by a permanent ice shelf. It ...
.
Finn Ronne and
Carl Eklund of the
US Antarctic Service (USAS) (1939–41) sledged along the north side of this feature in December 1940. It was photographed from the air and first mapped as an island by the
Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) (1947–48) under Finn Ronne. It was named by Ronne for Gen.
Carl Spaatz, Chief of Staff,
USAAF
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
, who gave assistance in providing an airplane for use of RARE.
See also
*
Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
*
List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands
*
List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S
*
SCAR
A scar (or scar tissue) is an area of fibrous tissue that replaces normal skin after an injury. Scars result from the biological process of wound repair in the skin, as well as in other organs, and tissues of the body. Thus, scarring is a n ...
*
Territorial claims in 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 ...
References
External links
Islands of Palmer Land
{{PalmerLand-geo-stub