Darwin Island () is an isolated northern member of the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands () are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of sli ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

, the uppermost extent of an

extinct volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the Crust (geology), crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth ...

. It has an area of and reaches

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

. Visits to the island are restricted by the

Government of Ecuador The politics of Ecuador are multi-party system, multi-party. The central government polity is a quadrennially republic, elected presidential system, presidential, unicameral representative democracy. The President of Ecuador is head of state an ...

, but

scuba diving Scuba diving is a Diving mode, mode of underwater diving whereby divers use Scuba set, breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The word ''scub ...

is permitted.

Names

Darwin is named in honor of the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

, whose visit to the Galapagos led him to publish his theories on

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

in ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'')The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by M ...

'' and other works. He is also the namesake of Great Darwin Bay on

Genovesa Island Genovesa Island (), also known as Tower Island, is a shield volcano in the Galápagos Islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The island occupies about , and its maximum elevation is . The horse-shoe shaped island has a volcanic caldera whose wa ...

. Darwin Island was previously named Lord Culpeper's Island, Culpepper's Island, and Culpepper Island in honor of Thomas Colepeper, 2nd

Baron Colepeper Baron Colepeper is an extinct title in the Peerage of England. Colepeper is sometimes rendered ''Culpeper'', Baron Colepeper of Thoresway, or Baron Thoresway. The barony was created in 1644 and became extinct following the death of the fourth b ...

. The name was bestowed by the pirate

William Ambrosia Cowley William Ambrosia Cowley, also known as Ambrose Cowley and Captain Cowley, was a 17th-century English people, English buccaneer who surveyed the Galápagos Islands during his 1683–1686 circumnavigation of the world while serving under several c ...

in 1684 and continued in use for centuries thereafter. The group formed by Darwin and nearby

Wolf Island Wolf Island () is a small island in the northern Galápagos Islands. It has an area of and a maximum altitude of above sea level. The island is remote from the main archipelago and has no permanent population. The Galápagos National Park does ...

is now known as Darwin and Wolf, Darwin–Wolf, or Darwin-Wolf. It was previously known in English as Culpepper and Wenman and in Spanish as Los Hermanos ("The Brothers") or los Dos Hermanos ("the Two Brothers").

Geology

Darwin Island is the remains of an extinct volcano that reaches

. It is among the smallest in the Galápagos Archipelago with an area of just . It is situated north-west of the main Galápagos Island group on the Wolf-Darwin Lineament, which extends from the Galápagos Platform to the Galápagos spreading center, a mid-ocean ridge separating the

Nazca Nazca (; sometimes spelled Nasca; possibly from ) is a city and system of valleys on the southern coast of Peru. The city of Nazca is the largest in the Nazca Province. The name is derived from the Nazca culture, which flourished in the area be ...

and Cocos tectonic plates. The formation of Darwin Island is different from the formation of the main Galápagos Islands. There are currently two theories on the formation of the

lineament ''See also Line (geometry)'' A lineament is a linear feature in a landscape which is an expression of an underlying geological structure such as a fault. Typically a lineament will appear as a fault-aligned valley, a series of fault or fold-align ...

: the first is that

magma Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma (sometimes colloquially but incorrectly referred to as ''lava'') is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also ...

rising from the mantle plume forming the main Galápagos Islands has been channelled towards the Galápagos spreading center; alternatively there has been a separate rise in magma caused by stress in the ocean

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the lithospheric mantle, the topmost portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time ...

by a

transform fault A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault (geology), fault along a plate boundary where the motion (physics), motion is predominantly Horizontal plane, horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either an ...

. Darwin Island is the most northerly of the two peaks on the Wolf Darwin Lineament that reach above the surface. The other,

, is approximately away, although there are other sub-surface peaks. The volcano that forms the island is extinct, with the last eruption believed to have been approximately 400,000 years ago, making it younger than Wolf. The lava flows around Darwin are homogenous, apparently because of its young age, and they have a similar chemical composition to those of the Galápagos spreading center.Role of Plume-Ridge Interaction in Magma Genesis III: Darwin Island
/ref> Darwin is believed to have had at least two eruptive periods in its history, depositing two tuff layers separated by

plagioclase Plagioclase ( ) is a series of Silicate minerals#Tectosilicates, tectosilicate (framework silicate) minerals within the feldspar group. Rather than referring to a particular mineral with a specific chemical composition, plagioclase is a continu ...

ultraphyric

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 ...

. Evidence also exists to suggest that Darwin Island is the remains of what was once a much larger edifice. Since the eruptive phase this would have been eroded. Darwin's Arch, a natural rock arch which would at one time have been part of this larger structure, was located less than a kilometer from the main Darwin Island, and it was a landmark well known to the island's few visitors, until its collapse in May 2021.

Wildlife

Darwin Island is not open to land visits. With no dry landing sites, Darwin Island's main attractions are found in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, which is teeming with a large variety of

marine life Marine life, sea life or ocean life is the collective ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, aquatic plant, plants, algae, marine fungi, fungi, marine protists, protists, single-celled marine microorganisms, microorganisms ...

. The only visitors are those that come to scuba dive, even here due to the distance from the main island only a limited number of

liveaboard Liveaboard can mean: *Someone who makes a boat, typically a small yacht in a marina, their primary residence. Powerboats and cruising sailboats are commonly used for living aboard, as well as houseboats which are designed primarily as a resid ...

ships cruise here. The marine life at Darwin is diverse with large schools of fish. The island's waters attract

whale shark The whale shark (''Rhincodon typus'') is a slow-moving, filter feeder, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known Extant taxon, extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of . The whale shark holds many records for ...

s from June to November, as well as hammerhead, Galápagos, silky and blacktip sharks. In addition

green turtles The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exten ...

manta ray Manta rays are large Batoidea, rays belonging to the genus ''Mobula'' (formerly its own genus ''Manta''). The larger species, ''Giant oceanic manta ray, M. birostris'', reaches in width, while the smaller, ''Reef manta ray, M. alfredi'', reac ...

s and

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...

s can be found. The island also supports a large bird population, including

frigatebird Frigatebirds are a Family (biology), family of seabirds called Fregatidae which are found across all tropical and subtropical oceans. The five extant species are classified in a single genus, ''Fregata''. All have predominantly black plumage, l ...

red-footed boobies The red-footed booby (''Sula sula'') is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae. Adults always have red feet, but the colour of the plumage varies. They are powerful and agile fliers, but they are clumsy in takeoffs and landings. They are ...

and the

vampire finch The vampire ground finch (''Geospiza septentrionalis'') is a small bird native to the Galápagos Islands. Endemic to Wolf and Darwin Island, it was previously considered a very distinct subspecies of the sharp-beaked ground finch (''Geospiza di ...

History

Although the island had been marked on maps, the first known landing on Darwin did not occur until 1964, when it was visited by helicopter.''Ecuador & the Galápagos Islands'', by Danny Palmerlee, Michael Grosberg, Carolyn McCarthy.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* .

External links

Darwin Island – govisitgalapagos.com
{{Authority control Islands of the Galápagos Islands Charles Darwin