Annenkov Island

Annenkov Island
South Georgia (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)
Satellite image of the island
Location
Location:	37°5'W 54°29'S
Highest point:	Olstad Peak, 2,133 feet
Data
Population:	Uninhabited

Annenkov Island (54°29'S 37°5'W) is to the west of the main island of South Georgia. The Pickersgill Islands are its south west. It is irregularly-shaped and 4 miles long and 2,133 feet at its highest point, lying 8 miles off the south-central coast of South Georgia.

History

The island was discovered in January 1775 by a British expedition under James Cook, who named it Pickersgills Island for Lieutenant Richard Pickersgill of the expedition ship HMS Resolution. Resighted in 1819 by a Russian expedition under Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen on the Vostok, who, thinking he was the discoverer of the island, named it Annenkov Island for Lieutenant Mikhail Annenkov, an officer on the expedition ship. The name Pickersgill has become established for a group of islands 15 miles to the southeast; the Pickersgill Islands.

Wildlife

A Site of Special Scientific Interest, Annenkov is one of the few rat-free islands of the South Georgia archipelago. Also, as Bellinghausen lamented, there is "not a single shrub nor any vegetation" on the island.

Landings are only allowed here with permission.

Geology

Annenkov's highest point is Olstad Peak, which rises to 2,133 feet. Olstad Peak was surveyed by the South Georgia Survey in the period 1951–57, and named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee for Ola Olstad, Norwegian zoologist, member of the Norwegian expedition under Harald Horntvedt, 1927–28, and chief scientist of the Norwegian expedition under Nils Larsen, 1928-29.

It is one of the few places in South Georgia where fossils may be found.

Intrusion Lake

Intrusion Lake is a lake, 350 yards long, located north-northeast of Olstad Peak in central Annenkov Island. Mapped by the British Antarctic Survey in 1972–73 and so named because its irregular shape is controlled by several intrusions of andesite along its north shore.

References

• Stonehouse, B (ed.) Encyclopedia of Antarctica and the Southern Oceans (2002, ISBN 0-471-98665-8)