Petermann Island

Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / area missing

The Petermann Island is an uninhabited island in Antarctica. It is located south of the Palmer Archipelago and north of the Argentine islands off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The island was discovered in January 1874 by the German whalers Eduard Dallmann and named after the geographer August Petermann.

The highest elevation of about 1.5 km long island reaches 150 m. The island is not completely glaciated, but it has a north-westerly part of a small ice cap. The Petermann Island is located at the southern end of the narrow, tree- high, sharp cliffs, scenic Lemaire Channel. It is the southernmost point for many cruises to Antarctica.

On the island there are breeding colonies of Gentoo and Adelie penguins. 2010/11 also a breeding pair of reins penguin was observed. Furthermore breed here Antarctic skuas, Wilson petrels, white sheathbills and blue-eyed shags. On Robben there are leopard seals and crabeater. The vegetation is scanty and consists of mosses and lichens. Snow algae are often spread far and give the snowfields a pink tint.

Jean -Baptiste Charcot wintered on 3 February 1909 to 26 November 1909 when his ship Pourquoi Pas? on Petermann Island, in a small bay, which he, because it was on January 1, 1909, the day of the circumcision of Christ, found "Port Circumcision " called. On the Megalestris - hill opposite the old anchorage Pourquoi Pas of? remember a Steinmann and the copy of a historical plaque on the Charcot Expedition. Both are available as Historical sites and monuments under the protection of the Antarctic Treaty. On the Petermann Island, there is an Argentine refuge from the 1950s, which is serviced by the crew of the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Station on Galindez Island. A cross commemorates three men of the British Faraday Station, which were killed in the winter of 1982 while returning from a climbing expedition.