Vega Island

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The Vega Island (english Vega Iceland, Spanish isla Vega ) is an island in the Weddell Sea. It lies immediately north of the James Ross Island and south of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Geography

The Vega island is located in the west of the Erebus and Terror Bay. It is separated from the larger James Ross Island in the west and the south by the at its narrowest point 5 km wide Herbert Sound. To the north lies behind the Prince Gustav Channel, the several small islands (Eagle Island, Corry Island, and others) contains here the Trinity Peninsula. In a bay on the north coast of the island of Vega - 2 -km-long island Devil Iceland, which is reported because of their colony from breeding pairs of almost 15.00 Adeliepinguins by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area ( Ant033 ) is.

The Vega island is 32.5 km long, up to 16.5 km wide and has an area of 253 km ². The island has two ice caps, many of which emanate glaciers, some of which extend to the coast. Since the end of 1999 mass balance measurements are at Glaciar Bahía del Diablo, an outlet glaciers in the north of the island, performed annually. A total of 66 percent of the island is glaciated. From 1988 to 2009, the area of the glaciers has declined by 10 km ². The largest ice-free area is located on the Cape Lamb in the southwest of the island.

The Vega island is a significant finding place for fossils from the Late Cretaceous period. Especially at the Cape Lamb fossils have been found of conifers, meeresbewohnenden of reptiles such as mosasaurs and Elasmosauriden and of belonging to the dinosaurs Hadrosauriern. As the oldest reliable evidence of the modern birds applies the discovered here Vegavis iaai from the Late Cretaceous.

History

The island was first sighted on January 6, 1843 by James Clark Ross, who held it, however, together with James Ross and the Snow Hill Island for part of the Antarctic Peninsula. Only the Swedish Antarctic expedition, which lasted from 1901 to 1903, could find the island character. The expedition leader Otto Nordenskjold named the island after the Bark Vega, with the Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld his uncle had conquered first the Northeast Passage.