Traversay Islands

From Wikishire
Jump to: navigation, search
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

The Traversay Islands are a group of three islands, Zavodovski, Leskov and Visokoi, at the northern end of the South Sandwich Islands.[1][2]

History

The group was discovered in November 1819 by a Russian expedition under Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen,[3][1]who named them for Jean-Baptiste Prevost de Sansac, Marquis de Traversay (1754–1831), a French naval officer who joined the Russian Imperial Navy in 1791, at the request of an émigré Frenchman in Russian service, Admiral Nassau-Siegen.[4] He was Minister of Naval Affairs at Saint Petersburg, 1809–28, and chief promoter of Bellingshausen's Antarctic voyage. The name was previously transliterated as Traverse because it was incorrectly thought that the man commemorated was a Russian.

Geography

  • Zavodovski Island (56°18'S 27°34'W) lies some 220 miles southeast of South Georgia. It is the northernmost of the South Sandwich Islands and the nearest to South Georgia. The island is approximately 3 miles across with a peak elevation of 1,808 feet above sea level.[4] The stratovolcano Mount Asphyxia dominates the western side of the island while the eastern half is a low-lying lava plain.
  • Visokoi Island (56°42'S 27°12'W) lies to the southeast of Zavodovski, capped by Mount Hodson, a volcanic peak of 3,297 feet.
  • Leskov Island (56°40'S 28°10'W) is located to the west of the main arc of the South Sandwich Islands and is less than a mile long and is 3 miles west of Visokoi.[4]

Outside links

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Stonehouse, Bernard (2002). Encyclopedia of Antarctica and the southern oceans. John Wiley and Sons. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-471-98665-2. 
  2. Scientific reports. British Antarctic Survey. 1962. 
  3. Paine, Lincoln P. (15 November 2000). Ships of discovery and Exploration. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-395-98415-4. 
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 LeMasurier, W. E.; Thomson, J. W. (eds.) (1990). Volcanoes of the Antarctic Plate and Southern Oceans. American Geophysical Union. p. 512 pp. ISBN 0-87590-172-7. 
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Georgia: Annenkov IslandBird IslandClerke RocksCooper IslandGrass IslandKupriyanov IslandsPickersgill IslandsSaddle IslandShag RocksSouth GeorgiaWelcome IslandsWillis IslandsTrinity IslandGrassholmBlack RocksBlack Rock
South Sandwich Islands:

BellingshausenBristolCandlemasCookLeskovMontaguSaundersThuleVindicationVisokoiZavodovski