Irizar Island
| Irizar Island | |
| Location | |
| Location: | 65°13’21"S, 64°12’5"W |
| Data | |
Irizar Island is a little island half a mile long, lying half a mile north-east of Uruguay Island in the north-eastern part of the Argentine Islands, a subgroup of the Wilhelm Archipelago of the west coast of Graham Land in the British Antarctic Territory.
The island was discovered by the French Antarctic Expedition, 1903–05, under Jean-Baptiste Charcot, and was roughly charted by that expedition. It was recharted in 1935 by the British Graham Land Expedition under John Rymill. It was photographed from the air by the Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition of 1956-57, and re-charted by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey and the Royal Navy in 1958.
Name
Charcot named the island 'Irizar' after Captain Julián Irízar of the Argentine Navy, who had commanded the Argentine gunboat Uruguay in the rescue of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition party from Snow Hill Island on 8 November 1903. Neighbouring Uruguay Island is named after Irízar's ship.
The Swedish expedition had however given the same name to an island off the Trinity Peninsula: to avoid duplication, the smaller island, off Trinity, was renamed Jonassen Island.
References
- Gazetteer and Map of The British Antarctic Territory: Irizar Island