ANTARCTIC PENINSULA
WEDDELL SEA The Weddell Sea is known for its massive tabular icebergs. It contains the Weddell Gyre and is part of the Southern Ocean. The bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula shapes its land boundaries. Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land, is the easternmost point, with the King Haakon VII Sea lying beyond to the east and covering much of the southern part of the sea up to Elephant Island. The sea lies within the two overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of Argentina and Britain, and partially within Chile’s territorial claim. The sea is around 2.8million km² in area, and at its widest measures about 2,000 kmacross. The Weddell Sea is named in honour of the Scottish sailor James Weddell, who entered in 1823. Weddell himself originallynameditafterKingGeorgeIV,but itwasrenamed in 1900. American sealing captainBenjaminMorrell also sailed the sea in 1823 and claimed to have seen land some 10–12° east of its actual boundary, calling it New South Greenland. This existence of this ‘new land’ was disproved when the sea was more fully explored in the early 20th century. Weddell got as far south as 74°S. Following his ventures, the furthest southern penetration before the modern era was by Scotland’sWilliamSpeirs Bruce in 1903. The sea is fringed by numerous ice shelves, including the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf. The ice shelves on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula used to extend approximately 10,000 km² over the Weddell Sea, but by 2002 some had completely disappeared. Still the area that disappearedwas far smaller than the total ice shelf that remains. The Weddell Sea is notable for its designation by scientists as having the clearest water of any sea. In October 1986, Dutch researchers from the German Alfred Wegener Institute were able to see a Secchi disc at a depth of 80 metres, and proclaimed the clarity corresponded to that of distilled water. Among the animals characteristic of the sea are Weddell seals. These remarkable animals are able to remain submerged for more than an hour and rasp through ice using their teeth to maintain breathing holes. The Adélie penguin has also adapted to the harsh environment and is the dominant penguin species in this remote region.
The northernmost point of mainland Antarctica is known as the Antarctic Peninsula. To the casual viewer, it is the largest and most prominent peninsula on the continent, extending 1,300kmbetweenCapeAdams(WeddellSea)andamainland point south of Eklund Islands. Beneath the ice sheet, the peninsula consists of a string of mountainous bedrock islands. Separatedbydeepchannelswhosebottoms plunge considerablybelowcurrent sea level, these islandsare joined together by a grounded ice sheet. About 1,000 km away, on the other side of the infamous Drake Passage, lies Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. The first sighting of the Antarctic Peninsula is thought to have been by Fabian Gottileb von Bellingshausen on 27 January 1820, during an expedition of the Russian Imperial Navy. The party reported an icefield broken up by small hillocks, but more than likely they had spotted the peninsula. A mere 3 days later on 30 January 1820 Edward Bransfield and William Smith were the first to officially chart part of the Antarctic Peninsula. The extreme northeast portion they found was later named Trinity Peninsula. John Biscoe is credited with the next confirmed sighting and named the northern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, GrahamLand. Just as there is no confirmation of the first sighting, the first landing has been questioned. John Davis, a seal hunter in the 19th century, seems to have been the first. Seal hunters were a secretive lot though, and often recorded false information in their log books to protect their movements from the competition. Landing on the Antarctic Peninsula in February 1902, the ship Antarctica sank not far from the peninsula but all crewsurvived andwere later rescued by an Argentineship.TheBritishGrahamLandExpeditionbetween 1934 and 1937 carried out aerial surveys and concluded their namesakewas not an archipelago but a peninsula. A difference evolved over the use of the United States’ name ‘Palmer Peninsula’ or the British name ‘GrahamLand’. Agreement by the US-ACAN and UK-APC in 1964 on the name Antarctic Peninsula came about by making Graham Land the part of the Antarctic Peninsula north of a line between Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz, while Palmer Land was the part that lay south. The United States had chosen thename tohonour seal hunter, AmericanNathaniel Palmer. Chile, meanwhile, refers to the peninsula as O’Higgins Land, after the Chilean patriot and Antarctic visionary. Other Latin American countries call it ‘PenínsulaAntártica’, among them Argentina, which has more bases and personnel there than any other nation and also calls it Tierra de SanMartin. Because it is so close to mainland South America, the Antarctic Peninsula remains very popular with tourists, who are drawn by its stunning scenery and abundant wildlife.
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