Laurie Island

Laurie Iceland is the most easterly located and with an area of ​​about 50 square kilometers, the second largest of the South Orkney Islands in the Southern Ocean. The island is subject to the Antarctic Treaty, but is nevertheless politically claimed by both Argentina and the UK.

Nature

Several peninsulas of the irregularly shaped island are - in contrast to the area covered by an ice cap interior of the island - not glaciated. These provide an ideal breeding grounds for Chinstrap and Adelie penguins, of which at Laurie Iceland more than 100,000 pairs were counted. Eleven areas on the island and offshore islands are recognized by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area ( Ant080 to Ant090 ). On a rocky island off Cape Davidson in southwestern Laurie Islands there is a colony of more than 200 breeding pairs of blue-eyed shags ( Ant082 ) and at Cape Geddes of Ferguslie Peninsula breed more than 200 pairs of giant petrel ( Ant086 ).

History

The after cartographer Richard Holmes Laurie (1766-1858) named island was discovered in 1821 by the whaler George Powell ( 1794-1823 ). As part of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 1902-1904 under the direction of William Speirs Bruce a building ( Omond House) was built, which was later renamed by Argentina in " Orcadas ". Today, the only inhabitants of the island are the crew members of the account maintained by the Argentine military Orcadas station in the Antarctic winter (October 2010) a permanent crew of 17 persons has (in summer 45).

The Omond House, built in 1905 Argentine magnetic observatory " Moneta House", an Argentine meteorological hut and a cemetery with twelve graves, of which the oldest dates back to 1903 stand today as a historical site HSM -42 under the protection of the Antarctic Treaty.