Tabarin Peninsula () is a

peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on all ...

15 nautical miles (28 km) long and 5 to 12 nautical miles (22 km) wide, lying south of the trough between

Hope Bay Hope Bay (Spanish: ''Bahía Esperanza'') on Trinity Peninsula, is long and wide, indenting the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and opening on Antarctic Sound. It is the site of the Argentinian Antarctic settlement Esperanza Base, established i ...

and

Duse Bay Duse Bay () is a bay indenting the south side of Trinity Peninsula between View Point and the western side of Tabarin Peninsula. It was discovered by a party under J. Gunnar Andersson, of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition The Swedish Antarct ...

and forming the east extremity of

Trinity Peninsula Trinity Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Antarctic Peninsula. It extends northeastward for about 130 km (80 mi) to Cape Dubouzet from an imaginary line connecting Cape Kater on the north-west coast and Cape Longing on the sou ...

in the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

. It was discovered and charted by the

Swedish Antarctic Expedition The Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1903 was a scientific expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld and Carl Anton Larsen. It was the first Swedish endeavour to Antarctica in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Background Otto Nordensk ...

, 1901–1904, led by

Otto Nordenskjöld Nils Otto Gustaf Nordenskjöld (6 December 1869 – 2 June 1928) was a Finnish and Swedish geologist, geographer, and polar explorer. Early life Nordenskjöld was born in Hässleby in Småland in eastern Sweden, in a Finland Swedish family that ...

and

Carl Anton Larsen Carl Anton Larsen (7 August 1860 – 8 December 1924) was a Norway, Norwegian-born Whaling, whaler and Antarctic explorer who made important contributions to the exploration of Antarctica, the most significant being the first discovery of fos ...

. It was mapped in 1946 by the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of global issues, and to provide an active presence in the Antarctic on ...

(FIDS) and named after

Operation Tabarin Operation Tabarin was the code name for a secret British expedition to the Antarctic during World War Two, operational 1943–46. Conducted by the Admiralty on behalf of the Colonial Office, its primary objective was to strengthen British claims t ...

, the naval code name for the FIDS from 1943 to 1945.

Geography

The Tabarin Peninsula extends from the northernmost point of the

southwards into the

Weddell Sea The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha ...

for about . It is connected to the mainland by an isthmus about wide which lies between

to the north and

to the south. The average height of the peninsular is about and the highest point, at around , is Mount Taylor which lies just north of the isthmus. Antarctic Sound-2016-Brown Bluff 01

To the east of the peninsula lies the

Antarctic Sound The Antarctic Sound is a body of water about long and from wide, separating the Joinville Island group from the northeast end of the Antarctic Peninsula. The sound was named by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskjöld for the e ...

and

Trepassey Bay Trepassey Bay is a natural bay located on the southeast end of the Avalon Peninsula of the island of Newfoundland, in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Communities located in Trepassey Bay are; Trepassey, Biscay Bay and Por ...

is an indentation half way along the east coast and above it is a

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

tuya A tuya is a flat-topped, steep-sided volcano formed when lava erupts through a thick glacier or ice sheet. They are rare worldwide, being confined to regions which were covered by glaciers and had active volcanism during the same period. As lava ...

known as

Brown Bluff Brown Bluff is a basalt tuya on the Tabarin Peninsula of northern Antarctica. It formed in the last 1 million years as a result of subglacial eruptions within an englacial lake. The volcano's original diameter is thought to have been about ...

. Cape Green and Cape Burd form the southerly extremities before the coast turns north into Duse Bay. Recently, more of the ground surface of the peninsula has become exposed by the melting of ice, and its geological structure is becoming clearer. Near Trepassey Bay there is a bed of steeply-dipping quartz-rich

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

s and

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...

s which are probably part of the Hope Bay Formation dating to the Permian-Triassic. Dioritic rocks in this area are probably part of the early

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

Antarctic Peninsula

batholith A batholith () is a large mass of intrusive igneous rock (also called plutonic rock), larger than in area, that forms from cooled magma deep in Earth's crust. Batholiths are almost always made mostly of felsic or intermediate rock types, such ...

. Rocks exposed above Duse Bay are

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

marine sediments dipping gently to the southeast, and consisting of 60% coarse-grained conglomerates, 30% mudstones and 10% sandstones. Cairn Hill and Mineral Hill are located on the peninsula.

Flora and fauna

The crumbling cliffs of Brown Bluff tower over Trepassey Bay, causing rock falls and scree slopes, and some wind-eroded boulders fall to the beach below. There are a few

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...

s grow here.

Weddell seal The Weddell seal (''Leptonychotes weddellii'') is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by British sealing ...

s often haul out on the beach and

leopard seal The leopard seal (''Hydrurga leptonyx''), also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic (after the southern elephant seal). Its only natural predator is the orca. It feeds on a wide range of prey incl ...

s hunt offshore. This is a breeding site for gentoo and

Adélie penguin The Adélie penguin (''Pygoscelis adeliae'') is a species of penguin common along the entire coast of the Antarctic continent, which is the only place where it is found. It is the most widespread penguin species, and, along with the emperor p ...

s, Cape petrels,

snow petrel The snow petrel (''Pagodroma nivea'') is the only member of the genus ''Pagodroma.'' It is one of only three birds that has been seen at the Geographic South Pole, along with the Antarctic petrel and the south polar skua, which have the most so ...

skua The skuas are a group of predatory seabirds with seven species forming the genus ''Stercorarius'', the only genus in the family Stercorariidae. The three smaller skuas, the long-tailed skua, the Arctic skua, and the pomarine skua are called jae ...

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, par ...

s. Other birds that probably breed here include the

southern giant petrel The southern giant petrel (''Macronectes giganteus''), also known as the Antarctic giant petrel, giant fulmar, stinker, and stinkpot, is a large seabird of the southern oceans. Its distribution overlaps broadly with the similar northern giant pet ...

, the

southern fulmar The southern fulmar (''Fulmarus glacialoides'') is a seabird of the Southern Hemisphere. Along with the northern fulmar, ''F. glacialis'', it belongs to the fulmar genus ''Fulmarus'' in the family Procellariidae, the true petrels. It is also kno ...

and

Wilson's storm petrel Wilson's storm petrel (''Oceanites oceanicus''), also known as Wilson's petrel, is a small seabird of the austral storm petrel family Oceanitidae. It is one of the most abundant bird species in the world and has a circumpolar distribution mainly ...

References

{{Authority control Peninsulas of Graham Land Landforms of Trinity Peninsula