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. It lies northwest of
Buckle Island, some north-northeast of
Belousov Point
Belousov Point () is an ice-covered headland forming the southern tip of the Anderson Peninsula, located just north of the terminus of Suvorov Glacier, situated in Victoria Land, Antarctica. The geographical headland was first mapped by the Soviet ...
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
Cape Ellsworth () is a sheer rock bluff high forming the north end of Young Island in the Balleny Islands. It was named by personnel of the ''Discovery II'' in 1936 for American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth. The vessel, after picking up Ellswor ...
in the north. The distance between these two capes is , and at its widest the island is across. The island is volcanic, with active
fumaroles, 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. Several
sea stacks lie off the island's northern tip. These are known as the Seal Rocks.
The island forms part of the
Ross Dependency, claimed by
New Zealand (see
Antarctic territorial claims
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 s ...
).
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.
See also
*
List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S
References
*
External links
*
Stratovolcanoes of New Zealand
Volcanoes of the Balleny Islands
Islands of the Balleny Islands
Volcanic islands
VEI-7 volcanoes
Pleistocene stratovolcanoes
Stratovolcanoes of Antarctica
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