scholarly journals V.—On the Innes Wilson Collection of Rocks and Minerals from the South Shetland Islands and Trinity Island

1922 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert H. Thomas

Mr J. Innes Wilson of Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, during the whaling-season of 1916–17 paid a visit to the South Shetland Islands and Palmer Archipelago. He collected specimens of rocks and minerals from Deception Island, Roberts Island, Trinity Island, and the coast bordering the Gerlache Channel, which were transmitted to the Colonial Office by the Governor, Sir William Douglas Young. It is with the kind permission of the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies that I am allowed to submit some account of Mr Innes Wilson's interesting and important collection.

Polar Record ◽  
1956 ◽  
Vol 8 (54) ◽  
pp. 237-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Mott

In 1955 Hunting Aerosurveys Ltd. were awarded a contract by the Colonial Office to carry out a survey of Graham Land and the South Shetland Islands. The survey was to be made by means of air photography and ground control. The base for the operation was at Port Foster, Deception Island, where an ice-free anchorage for flying boats could be expected during the summer months. The survey is to be continued in 1956–57.


Polar Record ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 6 (46) ◽  
pp. 743-745
Author(s):  
Bernard Stonehouse

In 1946 the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey station on Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands was completely destroyed by fire. Stores, valuable equipment and the records of many months' work were lost. In 1948 the station at Hope Bay in Trinity Peninsula was burnt down, with the loss of two lives. In January 1952 the hut of the French Antarctic Expedition at Port-Martin in Terre Adélie was destroyed in the same way. Smaller outbreaks of fire, fortunately detected early and dealt with promptly, have been reported from other stations. Of all the difficulties which can overtake a polar expedition, the loss of its base is perhaps the most disastrous. Nevertheless, the frequency with which such losses seem to occur suggests that there are fundamental errors in the design of the huts, as well as a tendency to underestimate the danger of fire.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquin Hopfenblatt ◽  
Adelina Geyer ◽  
Meritxell Aulinas ◽  
Antonio Polo Sánchez ◽  
Antonio Álvarez-Valero

<p>Deception Island is the most active volcano in the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica) with more than 20 eruptions in the in the last two centuries, including the 1967, 1969 and 1970 most recent eruptive events, and three episodes of volcanic unrest since 1990 (1992, 1999 and 2014-2015). Since the discovery of Deception island in 1820, the number of scientific bases, touristic activities, and air and vessel traffic in the region, have considerably increased. Only the Antarctic Peninsula region, together with the South Shetland Islands, hosts 25 research stations and 3 summer field camps, which are located inside or within a 150 km radius distance from this active volcano. Nearby, the Palmer Archipelago and the north-western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula are both important tourist destinations exceeding 30,000 visitors per year with a significant increase in vessel traffic during the tourist season. This escalation in the amount of exposed infrastructure and population to a future eruption of Deception Island clearly urges the need to advancing our knowledge of the island’s volcanic and magmatic history and developing improved vulnerability analyses and long-term volcanic hazard assessments. However, past attempts to construct a volcanic hazard map of Deception have always been limited by the lack of a complete eruption record. In this sense, volcanic ash layers found in marine and lacustrine sediment cores, and glaciers outside Deception Island can provide valuable information to: (i) determine the size and explosiveness of past eruptive events; (ii) assess the extent of their related hazards (e.g. ash fall out); (iii) complete the eruption record of the island; and (iv) estimate the island’s eruption recurrence over time.</p><p>In this work, we provide a detailed, and up-to-date, revision of the current knowledge on Deception Island’s tephra record.  For this, we have compiled the DecTephra (<strong>Dec</strong>eption Island <strong>Tephra</strong> Record) database, which seeks recording the most relevant information of all up today known tephra layers with Deception Island as presumed source vent. DecTephra database includes 335 tephra layers (including cryptotephras) found in marine/lacustrine sediment and ice cores. For each tephra layer, we have compiled information regarding: (i) location (e.g. latitude, longitude, region) and characteristics of the sampling site (e.g. length of the sediment or ice core); and (ii) tephra characteristics (e.g. age, chemistry, granulometry). The analysis of the information included in this new database shows that Deception Island’s tephras can be observed at numerous proximal (< 150 km) sampling sites distributed all along the South Shetland Islands but also as far as in the Scotia Sea (> 1,000 km) and the South Pole (> 2,900 km). Also, identified isochronous tephra horizons allow defining periods of higher explosive eruptive activity in the island during the Holocene.</p><p>This research is part of POLARCSIC and PTIVolcan research initiatives. This research was partially funded by the MINECO projects VOLCLIMA (CGL2015-72629-EXP) and VOLGASDEC (PGC2018-095693-B-I00)(AEI/FEDER, UE). A.P.S is grateful for his JAE_Intro scholarship (JAEINT_20_00670).</p>


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0250629
Author(s):  
Andrea M. Burfeid-Castellanos ◽  
Rafael P. Martín-Martín ◽  
Michael Kloster ◽  
Carlos Angulo-Preckler ◽  
Conxita Avila ◽  
...  

The marine waters around the South Shetland Islands are paramount in the primary production of this Antarctic ecosystem. With the increasing effects of climate change and the annual retreat of the ice shelf, the importance of macroalgae and their diatom epiphytes in primary production also increases. The relationships and interactions between these organisms have scarcely been studied in Antarctica, and even less in the volcanic ecosystem of Deception Island, which can be seen as a natural proxy of climate change in Antarctica because of its vulcanism, and the open marine system of Livingston Island. In this study we investigated the composition of the diatom communities in the context of their macroalgal hosts and different environmental factors. We used a non-acidic method for diatom digestion, followed by slidescanning and diatom identification by manual annotation through a web-browser-based image annotation platform. Epiphytic diatom species richness was higher on Deception Island as a whole, whereas individual macroalgal specimens harboured richer diatom assemblages on Livingston Island. We hypothesize this a possible result of a higher diversity of ecological niches in the unique volcanic environment of Deception Island. Overall, our study revealed higher species richness and diversity than previous studies of macroalgae-inhabiting diatoms in Antarctica, which could however be the result of the different preparation methodologies used in the different studies, rather than an indication of a higher species richness on Deception Island and Livingston Island than other Antarctic localities.


1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.E. Sugden ◽  
C.M. Clapperton

Evidence is presented for a more extensive ice cover over South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Islands, and the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Ice extended across the adjacent submarine shelves to a depth of 200 m below present sea level. Troughs cut into the submarine shelves by ice streams or outlet glaciers and ice-scoured features on the shelf areas suggest that the ice caps were warm-based. The South Shetland Islands appear not to have been overrun by continental ice. Geomorphological evidence in two island groups suggests that the maximum ice cover, which was responsible for the bulk of glacial erosion, predates at least one full glaciation. Subsequently there was a marine interval and then a glaciation which overran all of the lowlying peninsulas. The Falkland Islands, only 2° of latitude north of South Georgia, were never covered by an ice cap and supported only a few slightly enlarged cirque glaciers. This suggests that the major oceanographic and atmospheric boundary represented by the Antarctic Convergence, which is presently situated between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, has remained in a similar position throughout the glacial age. Its position is probably bathymetrically controlled.


Polar Record ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Adie ◽  
Bjørn L. Basberg

ABSTRACTThe first factory ship of the so-called modern era of Antarctic whaling was Admiralen, arriving together with two smaller catcher boats in the South Shetland Islands in January 1906, after a period of whaling in the Falkland Islands. The expedition leader was Alexander Lange, a Norwegian whaler with a long experience from whaling in northern Norway and Spitsbergen. He kept a diary for a considerable period and this covered several whaling voyages. The one dealing with the pioneer Antarctic season of 1905–1906 has been translated from Norwegian into English and is presented here with an introduction that places the expedition into its wider context.


Polar Record ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 5 (33-34) ◽  
pp. 45-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Bagshawe

The Antartic continent has been in the limelight during the past year, and it is well known that several countries are claiming parts of the area, which unfortunately overlap. Possessions belonging to Great Britain, but at present disputed, are all islands and territories lying between longitudes 20°and 50° W., south of latitudes 58° S. The islands enclosed by these boundaries are Dependencies of the Falkland Islands consisting of many islands and part the Antartic Continent. South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands, Graham Land, the South Shetland Islands, the South Sandwich Islands, Alexander I Land and part of Coats Land lie within this area, which amounts in all to about three million square miles, and the territories, portions of which are as yet unexplored, extend down to the South Pole. Great Britain permanently occupies the Dependencies, carrying on a whaling industry and scientific research. In addition the Argentine Government has a meteorological station on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys. This was established in 1904 at the request of Dr W. S. Bruce, leader of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, who had built the station two years earlier. Since 1904 it has been continually manned by meteorologists sent out each year from Argentina. The original party had a post office, the first to appear in Antarctica. This and the more recent ones set up under British administration are marked on the accompanying map. Owing to the impermanence of the population of this part of the world they are naturally not all open continuously.


Polar Record ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Louise Williams

Abstract Deception, Bridgeman and Penguin are the three most recently active volcanic islands in the South Shetland Islands. Since the discovery of the archipelago in 1819, Deception Island has erupted on frequent occasions, most recently in August 1970. A number of nineteenth-century observers reported fumarolic or volcanic activity from Bridgeman Island. No eyewitness accounts of activity from Penguin Island have been found. A chronological list detailing the historic reports from Bridgeman Island was compiled to compare and establish their veracity. This process revealed a consistency of observation from independent observers. An effort has been made to consider if any of these reports of activity may have belonged instead to Penguin Island volcano, 60 km (32 NM) away. A review of the timing of discovery and availability of the first charts of the South Shetlands was also examined to narrow the period when mariners might have mistaken one island for another. Only the three earliest observations of activity from an unnamed volcano, during the short period when no maps were available, may be questioned. A useful chart of the region was published in 1822, and all subsequent observations of activity were from Bridgeman, not Penguin Island.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Micheline Carvalho-Silva ◽  
Luiz Henrique Rosa ◽  
Otávio H.B. Pinto ◽  
Thamar Holanda Da Silva ◽  
Diego Knop Henriques ◽  
...  

Abstract The few Antarctic studies to date to have applied metabarcoding in Antarctica have primarily focused on microorganisms. In this study, for the first time, we apply high-throughput sequencing of environmental DNA to investigate the diversity of Embryophyta (Viridiplantae) DNA present in soil samples from two contrasting locations on Deception Island. The first was a relatively undisturbed site within an Antarctic Specially Protected Area at Crater Lake, and the second was a heavily human-impacted site in Whalers Bay. In samples obtained at Crater Lake, 84% of DNA reads represented fungi, 14% represented Chlorophyta and 2% represented Streptophyta, while at Whalers Bay, 79% of reads represented fungi, 20% represented Chlorophyta and < 1% represented Streptophyta, with ~1% of reads being unassigned. Among the Embryophyta we found 16 plant operational taxonomic units from three Divisions, including one Marchantiophyta, eight Bryophyta and seven Magnoliophyta. Sequences of six taxa were detected at both sampling sites, eight only at Whalers Bay and two only at Crater Lake. All of the Magnoliophyta sequences (flowering plants) represent species that are exotic to Antarctica, with most being plausibly linked to human food sources originating from local national research operator and tourism facilities.


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