Signy Island
| Signy Island | |
 Factory Cove on Signy Island | |
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| Location | |
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| Location: | 60°43’1"S, 45°36’0"W |
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Signy Island is a small sub-antarctic island amongst the South Orkney Islands, which belong to the British Antarctic Territory. It is immediately south of Coronation Island (the largest of the group) in the Scotia Sea.
Signy is the location of main base of the British Antarctic Survey.
The island was named by the Norwegian whaler Petter Martin Mattias Koch Sørlle after his wife Signy Therese.
Geography
It is about 4 miles long and 3 miles wide and rises to 945 feet above sea level. Much of the island is permanently covered with ice. The average temperature range is 0°C to about -10°C in winter (in July). The extremes reach about -12°C and -44°C.
Signy Research Station
The British Antarctic Survey maintains the Signy Research Station, a scientific station for research in biology. The base was opened on 18 March 1947, on the site of an earlier whaling station that had existed there in the 1920s.
The station was staffed year-round until 1996; since that year it has been occupied only from November to April. It houses 10 people.[1]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Signy Island) |
References
- ↑ "Who We Are" (Web). Natural Environment Research Council. http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_bas/our_organisation/who_we_are.php. Retrieved 2007-11-11.
