Beethoven Peninsula
The Beethoven Peninsula is a deeply indented, ice-covered peninsula, 60 miles long in a northeast-southwest direction and 60 miles wide at its broadest part, forming the southwest part of Alexander Island, which lies off the southwestern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula, within the British Antarctic Territory.
Between the Beethoven Peninsula and the Monteverdi Peninsula to the east is the Bach Inlet, opening into a large bay filled with the Bach Ice Shelf.
Along the south side of the peninsula lies the Bach Ice Shelf whilst the north side of the peninsula is the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The Mendelssohn Inlet, the Brahms Inlet and the Verdi Inlet apparently intrude into it. The Bach Ice Shelf, Rossini Point and Berlioz Point are some distance away, on the Ronne Entrance from the Southern Ocean. Beethoven Peninsula is one of the eight peninsulas of Alexander Island.
The peninsula was first seen and photographed from the air in 1940 by the US Antarctic Service, which compiled the first rough map of southwest Alexander Island. It was resighted and photographed from the air by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition 1947–48, and remapped from Ronne photographs by Derek J.H. Searle of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1960.
The peninsula was named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee after the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. It is one of several peninsulas and features in the south of the island which have been named after composers or their works. One of the smaller peninsulas extending from the Beethoven Peninsula is name "Eroica" after one of Beethoven's famed works.
See also
Location
- Location map: 71°43’60"S, 73°40’60"W
References
- National Geographic Atlas of the World, 7th Edition.
- Gazetteer and Map of The British Antarctic Territory: Beethoven Peninsula
