Young Island () is the northernmost and westernmost of the three main islands in the uninhabited

Balleny Islands The Balleny Islands () are a series of uninhabited islands in the Southern Ocean extending from 66°15' to 67°35'S and 162°30' to 165°00'E. The group extends for about in a northwest-southeast direction. The islands are heavily glaciated an ...

group located in the

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 ...

. It lies northwest of

Buckle Island Buckle Island is one of the three main islands in the uninhabited Balleny Islands group located in the Southern Ocean. It lies north-west of Sturge Island and south-east of Young Island, some north-north-east of Belousov Point on the Ant ...

, some north-northeast of Belousov Point on the Antarctic mainland. The island is roughly semi-oval in shape, with a long straight east coast and a curved west coast meeting at Cape Scoresby in the south and Cape Ellsworth in the north. The distance between these two capes is , and at its widest the island is across. The island is volcanic, with active

fumarole A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or other rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...

s, and a height of . It is entirely covered with snow. An explosive VEI-7 eruption occurred from Young Island 1,700,000 years ago. Several small islets lie in the channel separating Cape Scoresby and Buckle Island, the largest of which is

Borradaile Island Borradaile Island () is one of the Balleny Islands. It was the site of the first landing south of the Antarctic Circle, and features the "remarkable pinnacle" called ''Beale Pinnacle'', near Cape Beale on its south-eastern coast, and Cape Scoresby ...

. Several

sea stack A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology. ...

s lie off the island's northern tip. These are known as the Seal Rocks. The island forms 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 Antarctic territorial claims). On some days near the Southern Hemisphere

summer solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer ...

, Young Island is the first place on land to have a sunrise - that is, the sun sets very briefly, and then rises again earlier in the day than anywhere else on Earth.

References

External links

* Stratovolcanoes of New Zealand Volcanoes of the Balleny Islands Islands of the Balleny Islands Volcanic islands VEI-7 volcanoes Pleistocene stratovolcanoes {{OutlyingNZ-geo-stub

See also

References

External links