Sturge Island

Sturge Iceland is an uninhabited volcanic island in the Southern Ocean, about 300 kilometers from the Antarctic mainland. It is the southernmost and easternmost of the quasi Balleny Islands and part of the Ross Dependency, claimed by New Zealand to the Antarctic Territory. Sturge Iceland situated 85 kilometers southeast of Buckle Iceland and 136 kilometers south-east of Young Iceland, in contrast to these, however, not surrounded by other smaller islands. It was discovered as the first of the Balleny Islands on February 9, 1839 by the British whaling captain John Balleny.

Sturge Iceland is about 34 km long in east-west direction up to 15 km wide and covers an area of ​​437.4 km ² in the north-south direction. The completely covered by glaciers island has two peaks: the 1524 meter high and still unclimbed Brown Peak in the south and the 1167 m high peak Russel, a stratovolcano, in the north.

The south-eastern tip of the island, Cape Freeman, is a 672 meters high, nearly vertical cliff and is named after Thomas Freeman, who entered the Sturge- island on February 9, 1839 for the first time. From there, it is still 480 km to the nearest island to the east, the isolated lying Scott Island.