The Balleny Islands () are a series of uninhabited islands in the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-smal ...

extending from 66°15' to 67°35'S and 162°30' to 165°00'E. The group extends for about in a northwest-southeast direction. The islands are heavily glaciated and of volcanic origin. Glaciers project from their slopes into the sea. The islands were formed by the so-called Balleny hotspot. The group includes three main islands: Young, Buckle and Sturge, which lie in a line from northwest to southeast, and several smaller islets and rocks: *northeast of Young Island: Seal Rocks, Pillar *southeast of Young Island: Row Island, Borradaile Island (with Swan Base shelter hut) *south of Buckle Island: Scott Cone, Chinstrap Islet, Sabrina Islet (with Sabrina Refuge shelter hut), and the Monolith The islands are claimed by

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

as part of the Ross Dependency (see Territorial claims in Antarctica).

Islands and rocks from north to south

The islands' area totals and the highest point has been measured as or approximately (the unclimbed Brown Peak on Sturge Island). The

Antarctic Circle The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, and the zone immediately to the north is called the Southern Temperate Zone. So ...

is close to Borradaile Island, in the eight-kilometre channel between Young and Buckle Islands. Buckle Island and the nearby Sabrina Island is home to several colonies of Adelie and chinstrap penguins.

Recorded human visits to the islands

The English sealing captains John Balleny and Thomas Freeman first sighted the group in 1839. Balleny named the island group after himself and the individual islands after the London merchants whose financial backing had made the expedition possible. Freeman was the first person to land on any of the islands on 9 February 1839, and this was the first human landfall south of the

. Sealers sighted the islands in 1853 but did not land. In February 2015 the islands were visited for three days by the New Zealand-Australia Antarctic Ecosystems Voyage under the auspices of the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research aboard the vessel RV Tangaroa, with the objective of studying marine life ecosystems of the islands, especially with reference to the

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hu ...

. This work followed up work done on a previous visit in 2010. On 3 February 2017, personnel from the Swiss Polar Institute's Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition visited the islands and carried out considerable photographic and video survey work which was intended to contribute to the first accurate mapping of the main islands. Most of the work was done by helicopter, although at least one landfall was also made on the islands by this expedition, using

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pa ...

inflatable boats.

Geology

In the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arch ...

, the Buckle, Sturge and Young Islands are examples of stratovolcanoes. Strong earthquakes very close to the islands are rare, but tremors of moderate strength do occur over the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge, Macquarie Triple Junction and Pacific Rim between the Balleny Islands and Macquarie Island. Other earthquakes occur near the

Southeast Indian Ridge The Southeast Indian Ridge (SEIR) is a mid-ocean ridge in the southern Indian Ocean. A divergent tectonic plate boundary stretching almost between the Rodrigues Triple Junction () in the Indian Ocean and the Macquarie Triple Junction () in t ...

and Balleny Fracture Zone, including a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in 1998 that struck just over west-northwest of the islands which changed the pattern of seismicity in a wide area around the islands. It is possible that these islands are still volcanically active. The Brown Peak volcano may have had an eruption in 2001, based on satellite observation.

Submerged features

Several underwater features lie close to the Balleny Islands: *

Balleny Seamounts Balleny Seamounts () are seamounts named in association with the Balleny Islands. The name was approved by the Advisory Committee for Undersea Features The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the Unite ...

* Balleny Trough * Umitaka Bank *

Vaughan Bank Vaughan Bank () is a submarine bank in the Balleny Islands area. It was named for V. J. Vaughan, Commanding Officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in com ...

References

External links