South Orkney Islands

Signy Island base and panorama

The South Orkney Islands

The South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean belonging to the British Antarctic Territory. They lie about 375 miles northeast of the tip of Graham Land. They have a total area of about 239 square miles.

The British Antarctic Survey operates a base on Signy Island. The Argentine Navy maintains a permanent base also on Laurie Island and uses it to support its claim to interests in the Antarctic. Apart from base personnel, there are no inhabitants.

History

Signy Island base

The South Orkney Islands were discovered in 1821 by two sealers, Nathaniel Brown Palmer and George Powell. The Islands were originally named Powell's Group, and the main island was named Coronation Island as it was the year of the coronation of King George IV. In 1823, James Weddell visited the Islands, gave the archipelago its present name (after the Orkney Islands) and also renamed some of the islands. The South Orkney Islands are located at roughly the same latitude south as the Orkney Islands are north (60°S as against 59°N), although it is not known if this was a factor behind the naming of the islands.

Subsequently, the islands were frequently visited by sealers and whalers, but no thorough survey was done until the expedition of William Speirs Bruce on the Scotia in 1903, which overwintered at Laurie Island. Bruce surveyed the islands, reverted some of Weddell's name changes, and established a meteorological station, which was sold to the Argentinian Government upon his departure in 1904. This base, renamed Orcadas in 1951, is still in operation.

A 1944 stamp of the Falkland Islands overprinted for use in the South Orkneys.

The South Orkney Oslands were incorporated into the Falkland Islands Dependencies by Letters Patenet in 1908, which took in all territories "to the south of the 50th parallel of south latitude, and lying between the 20th and the 80th degrees of west longitude", thus including the South Orkney Islands. A biological research station on Signy Island was built in 1947 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey. In 1962, the islands became part of the newly established British Antarctic Territory.

Geography

The Islands are situated at latitudes about 60°30' to 60°83' S, and longitudes 44°25' to 46°25' W in the Southern Ocean.

The archipelago comprises four main islands:

• Coronation Island is the largest island, measuring about 30 miles long; its highest point is Mount Nivea which rises to 4,153 feet above sea level.
• Laurie Island is the easternmost of the islands.
• Powell Island
• Signy Island.

Smaller islands in the group include Robertson Island, the Saddle Islands, and Acuna Island. The total area of the archipelago is about 240 square miles, of which about 90 percent is glaciated.

The Inaccessible Islands about 15 nautical miles to the west are also considered part of the South Orkneys.

The climate of the South Orkneys is generally cold, wet, and windy. Summers are short and cold (December to March) when the average temperatures reach about 2.0 °C (35.6 °F) and fall to about -10.0 °C (14.0 °F) in winter (in July). The seas around the islands are ice-covered from late April to November.

Despite the harsh conditions the islands do support vegetation and are part of the Scotia Sea Islands tundra ecoregion, along with South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the South Shetland Islands and Bouvet Island. All these islands lie in the cold seas below the Antarctic convergence. These areas support tundra vegetation consisting of mosses, lichens and algae, while seabirds, penguins and seals feed in the surrounding waters.

South Orkney Trough (60°0’0"S, 45°0’0"W) is an undersea trough named in association with the South Orkney Islands.

Outside links

• Description of Bruce's expedition
• Images