Vega Island

Vega Island

Map of Graham Land, showing Vega Island (7)
Vega Island Location in Antarctica
Geography
Location	Antarctica
Coordinates	63°50′S 57°25′W / 63.833°S 57.417°W / -63.833; -57.417
Archipelago	James Ross Island group
Width	3 km (1.9 mi)
Administration
British Antarctic Territory
Administered under the Antarctic Treaty System
Demographics
Population	Uninhabited

Vega Island is a small island to the northwest of James Ross Island, on the Antarctic Peninsula. It is separated from James Ross Island by Herbert Sound. The island and several of its features were charted and named by Otto Nordenskjold, leader of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (1901–04) in honour of the ship that made the first voyage through the Northeast Passage between 1878 and 1879.

Vega Island is an important site for paleontology. The region is extremely rich in terrestrial and marine fossils which span the boundary of the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods, covering the point in time when dinosaurs became extinct. Fossils found on the island include hadrosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs.

Geology[edit]

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The island is a rare volcano type called a móberg, or tuya, which was formed by a three-stage eruption sequence below an ice cap. Stage one was a subglacial hyaloclastic eruption, which shattered the lava into glass, ash, and sand which has since weathered to yellow palagonite layers. The second phase was a lava eruption into a meltwater glacial lake contained in the ice cap, which resulted in volcanic breccia and basalt pillow lava. The final phase was subaerial basalt lava flows on top of the previous volcanic deposits after the lake drained or boiled away. The basalt flows from a caprock along the northwest shore, which forms an impermeable layer that results in about sixty waterfalls on warm days.

Geography[edit]

Unless otherwise noted, the following features were first charted and named by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901–04, under Otto Nordenskiöld.

Coastal[edit]

The northwestern end of the island is a rounded headland called Keltie Head, whose vertical cliffs rise to a small ice dome 395 metres (1,300 ft) high.^[1] It was named after Sir John Scott Keltie, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.^[1] The Vertigo Cliffs are spectacular, 200 m near-vertical cliffs on the island's north coast, spanning about 7 nautical miles (13 km) towards Cape Well-met to the east. They were named allusively by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) in 1987.^[2] Cape Well-met is a dark, conspicuous headland near the center of the island's north side, close south of Trinity Peninsula. Its name commemorates the long-delayed reunion the expedition's winter party and relief party, after twenty months of enforced separation.^[3]

Cape Gordon is a jagged headland 330 metres (1,080 ft) high, forming the east end of Vega Island. It was discovered by the Ross expedition of 1839–1843, under James Clark Ross, and named by him for Captain William Gordon, Royal Navy, a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty.^[4]

False Island Point is a headland 1 nautical mile (2 km) long and 0.5 nautical miles (1 km) wide, which is connected to the center of the south side of the island by a low, narrow, almost invisible isthmus. Nordenskiöld's expedition charted it as an island. It was not until 1945 that the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) determined it to be a part of Vega Island and named it accordingly.^[5] To the east of this isthmus, Pastorizo Bay indents the island's south side for a width of 2 nautical miles (3.7 km). This name appears on an Argentine chart of 1959.^[6] Mahogany Bluff marks the bay's east side. It was named by UK-APC because of the striking deep red-brown color of the bluff, reminiscent of mahogany wood.^[7]

Cape Lamb forms the island's southwestern tip. First discovered by Nordenskiöld's expedition, it was resighted by FIDS personnel, and named after lichenologist Elke Mackenzie (formerly Lamb).^[8]

Inland[edit]

Sandwich Bluff is a flat-topped mountain, 610 m, broken sharply at its west side by a steep dark bluff standing slightly west of center on Vega Island. First discovered by Nordenskiöld's expedition, it was charted by the FlDS, and so named because a horizontal snow-holding band of rock breaks the western cliff giving it the appearance of a sandwich when viewed from the north.^[9] Léal Bluff is a rounded bluff rising to 485 metres (1,590 ft), 2 nautical miles (4 km) inland from Cape Lamb. It was named by the Argentine Antarctic Expedition after Major Jorge Léal, deputy leader at Esperanza Station in 1947.^[10]

See also[edit]

• Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
• List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S
• SCAR
• Territorial claims in Antarctica

References[edit]

• "Vega Island". Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).
• "New Dinosaur Finds in Antarctica Paint Fuller Picture of Past Ecosystem". National Science Foundation. 6 February 1998.

External links[edit]

• Antarctic Researchers to Discuss Difficult Recovery of Unique Juvenile Plesiosaur Fossil, from the National Science Foundation, December 6, 2006.
• Rocas hipabisales del grupo volcánico James Ross, Isla Vega (Spanish)