Marion Nunataks
The Marion Nunataks are a small group of nunataks, ice-free rock exposures, rising to about 1,970 feet above sea level on Charcot Island, in the eastern Bellingshausen Sea in the British Antarctic Territory. They form a 12 km chain of rocky outcrops on the mid-north coast of the island, stretching from Mount Monique at the western end to Mount Martine in the east.
History
They were discovered and roughly mapped on 11 January 1910 by the Fourth French Antarctic Expedition under Jean-Baptiste Charcot, and named by him in association with Mount Monique and Mount Martine after his daughter, Marion. They were photographed from the air on 9 February 1947 in the course of the US Navy's Operation Highjump and mapped from these photographs by D. Searle of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1960.
Antarctic Specially Protected Area
Some 68 square miles of land encompassing the nunataks is protected as an 'Antarctic Specially Protected Area' (ASPA No.170) for its biological values. It includes two species of lichen that have not been recorded elsewhere in Antarctica, mosses rarely found so far south, as well as a complete lack of predatory arthropods and Collembola. It was the first ASPA site to protect a substantial representative area of the permanent ice cap and nunataks of Palmer Land.[1]
Location
- Location map: 69°45’29"S, 75°17’25"W
References
- ↑ "Marion Nunataks, Charcot Island, Antarctic Peninsula". Management Plan for Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 170: Measure 4, Annex. Antarctic Treaty Secretariat. 2008. http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/Att388_e.pdf.
- Gazetteer and Map of The British Antarctic Territory: Marion Nunataks