The Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago ( pt, Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo ) is a group of 15 small

islets An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanen ...

and rocks in the central equatorial

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

.The scientific station of São Pedro and São Paulo Archipelago - Brazil
Alvarez, Cristina E., Melo, Julio E., Mello, Roberto L. Retrieved on June 6, 2009. It lies in the

Intertropical Convergence Zone The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms because of its monotonous windless weather, is the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge. It encircles Earth near the thermal ...

, a region of the Atlantic characterized by low average winds punctuated with local thunderstorms. It lies approximately from the nearest point of mainland

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

(the northeastern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian coastal town of

Touros Touros (lit. "bulls") is a municipality in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. It is known as "Brazil's Corner" because it is located at the northeast corner of the country, being the closest South American city to Africa (2,841 km from Kabrousse in ...

); northeast of the archipelago of

Fernando de Noronha Fernando de Noronha () is an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the State of Pernambuco, Brazil, and located off the Brazilian coast. It consists of 21 islands and islets, extending over an area of . Only the eponymous main island is in ...

; from the city of

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...

; and from the west coast of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. Administratively, the archipelago belongs to

and is part of the special "state district" ( pt, distrito estadual) of

, in the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Pernambuco Pernambuco () is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.6 million people as of 2020, making it seventh-most populous state of Brazil and with around 98,148 km², being the ...

, in spite of the very large distance between the two island groups and the even larger distance to the state mainland. The islets expose serpentinized abyssal

mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...

peridotite Peridotite ( ) is a dense, coarse-grained igneous rock consisting mostly of the silicate minerals olivine and pyroxene. Peridotite is ultramafic, as the rock contains less than 45% silica. It is high in magnesium (Mg2+), reflecting the high pr ...

and kaersutite-bearing ultramafic

mylonite Mylonite is a fine-grained, compact metamorphic rock produced by dynamic recrystallization of the constituent minerals resulting in a reduction of the grain size of the rock. Mylonites can have many different mineralogical compositions; it is a ...

atop the world's highest and yet only second largest megamullion (after the Parece Vela megamullion under

Okinotorishima , or Parece Vela, is a coral reef with two rocks enlarged with tetrapod-cement structures. It is administered by Japan with a total shoal area of and land area . Its dry land area is mostly made up by three concrete encasings and there is a ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

). This grouping is the sole location in the Atlantic Ocean where the abyssal mantle is exposed above sea level. In 1986, the archipelago was designated an environmentally

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

. This is now part of the Fernando de Noronha Environmental Protection Area. Since 1998, the

Brazilian Navy ) , colors= Blue and white , colors_label= Colors , march= " Cisne Branco" ( en, "White Swan") (same name as training ship '' Cisne Branco'' , mascot= , equipment= 1 multipurpose aircraft carrier7 submarines6 frigates2 corvettes4 amphibio ...

has maintained a permanently manned research facility on the islands.Programa Arquipélago

. Retrieved on 2009-07-16. The main economic activity around the islets is

tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...

fishing.

History

Operation Sandblast - St Peter and St Paul Rock

On April 20, 1511, a

Portuguese Navy The Portuguese Navy ( pt, Marinha Portuguesa, also known as ''Marinha de Guerra Portuguesa'' or as ''Armada Portuguesa'') is the naval branch of the Portuguese Armed Forces which, in cooperation and integrated with the other branches of the Port ...

fleet composed of six

caravel The caravel (Portuguese: , ) is a small maneuverable sailing ship used in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The lateen sails gave it speed and the capacity for sailing w ...

s under the command of Captain

Garcia de Noronha Dom Garcia de Noronha (1479 in Lisbon – 3 April 1540 in Cochin) was a Portuguese nobleman. He was great-great-grandson of King Ferdinand I of Portugal, was the third viceroy and tenth governor of Portuguese India. As far as his life is rec ...

discovered the islets by accident while on their journey to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. While navigating in the open sea late at night, the ''Saint Peter'' caravel, under the command of Captain Manuel de Castro Alcoforado, crashed against the islets. The crew was rescued by the ''Saint Paul'' caravel, forming the name given to the islets.Saint Peter and Saint Paul's Archipelago - Tectonic uplift of infracrustal rocks in the Atlantic Ocean
Campos, T.F.C.; Virgens Neto, J.; Srivastava, N.K.; Petta, R.A.; Harmann, L.A.; Moraes, J.F.S.; Mendes, L.; Silveira, S.R.M. In: Winge, M.; Schobbenhaus, C.; Berbert-Born, M.; Queiroz, E.T.; Campos, D.A.; Souza, C.R.G.; Fernandes, A.C.S. (Ed.), ''Geological and Palaeontological Sites of Brazil''. Retrieved on 2017-03-20. In December 1799, the American captain

Amasa Delano ''Benito Cereno'' is a novella by Herman Melville, a fictionalized account about the revolt on a Spanish slave ship captained by Don Benito Cereno, first published in three installments in ''Putnam's Magazine, Putnam's Monthly'' in 1855. The ta ...

landed on the islets. He spent an afternoon and one night on the rocks. On the morning of February 16, 1832, the rocks were visited by

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

on the first leg of his voyage on HMS ''Beagle'' around the world. Darwin listed all the fauna he could find, noting that not a single plant or even a lichen could be found on the island. Darwin found two birds, a

booby A booby is a seabird in the genus ''Sula'', part of the family Sulidae. Boobies are closely related to the gannets (''Morus''), which were formerly included in ''Sula''. Systematics and evolution The genus ''Sula'' was introduced by the Fre ...

and a noddy, a large crab that stole the fish intended for chicks, a fly that lived on the booby and a parasitic tick. He found a moth that lived on feathers, a beetle, a woodlouse that lived on dung, and numerous spiders that he thought lived on scavengers of the waterfowl. Darwin felt that these rocks represented how life first took hold on a newly formed outcrop.Darwin's description from Voyage of the Beagle
Retrieved on 2009-07-16. Darwin was correct in noting that, unusually, these small islands were not volcanic, but were instead formed by a geologic uplift. The rocks, then called "St. Paul's Rocks", were visited by

James Clark Ross Sir James Clark Ross (15 April 1800 – 3 April 1862) was a British Royal Navy officer and polar explorer known for his explorations of the Arctic, participating in two expeditions led by his uncle John Ross, and four led by William Edwa ...

on 29 November 1839. He was in charge of an expedition to the Antarctic regions with two vessels, HMS ''Erebus'' and HMS ''Terror''. Robert McCormick gave some geological and biological remarks on St. Paul's Rocks in the report on the expedition. Another famous person to visit the rocks was

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age o ...

, on his last expedition to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

(1921–1922). In 1942, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the islets were declared to be part of the Federal Territory of

(which also included the

Rocas Atoll The Rocas Atoll ( pt, Atol das Rocas ) is the only atoll in the South Atlantic Ocean. It belongs to the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Norte. It is located approximately northeast of Natal and west of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. The ...

). In early 1960, the rocks served as the starting-point and terminus for the first submerged circumnavigation of the world by the American

nuclear-powered submarine A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, but not necessarily nuclear-armed. Nuclear submarines have considerable performance advantages over "conventional" (typically diesel-electric) submarines. Nuclear propulsion, ...

. In 1982 a wind anemometer with satellite telemetry reporting via GOES EAST satellite was installed by a team from Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory with help from the Francais Ocean Climat Atlantique (FOCAL) and the Captain and crew of the N/O CAPRICORNE. This installation was supported by National Science Foundation Grant #OCE 82-09982.

Scientific station

On June 25, 1998, the

inaugurated the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago Scientific Station ( pt, Estação Científica do Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo; ECASPSP). The station is manned with four

researchers Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

, who are rotated in and out every 15 days.Nova Era no Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo
Brazilian Navy. Retrieved on June 6, 2009. By maintaining permanent occupation of the archipelago, the Brazilian Navy extends Brazil's Exclusive Economic Zone,

territorial waters The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potent ...

and

airspace Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is th ...

into the North Atlantic Ocean. On June 5–6, 2006, an

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

with a magnitude of above six on the

Richter magnitude scale The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 p ...

rocked the archipelago. The strong

tidal surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the ...

following the earthquake caused the battery compartment to crash against the station's outer wall, allowing sea water to flood the station. The four researchers who were on the archipelago took shelter in the lighthouse, while maintaining constant contact with the Brazilian Navy. A

fishing vessel A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Many different kinds of vessels are used in commercial, artisanal and recreational fishing. The total number of fishing vessels in the world in 2016 was ...

located nearby rescued the researchers, who were then transferred to a Brazilian Navy

patrol boat A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border security, or law enforcement. There are many designs for patrol boats, and the ...

. The incident caused considerable damage to the station and equipment. The station was repaired on September 9–11, 2006, and became operational shortly after. In 2007, the Brazilian Navy started to build a new scientific station on the archipelago. Construction began on July 24, 2007, and was completed on June 25, 2008. The new station was built with seismic isolation, and is considerably larger and better equipped than the previous one. The station is composed of a main building – equipped with

reverse osmosis Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process that uses a partially permeable membrane to separate ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. In reverse osmosis, an applied pressure is used to overcome osmotic ...

salt water

desalination Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in soil desalination, which is an issue for agriculture. Salt ...

system,

photovoltaics Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially ...

system and

satellite communications A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. ...

system; deposits and a mooring dock. The Brazilian Navy also maintains a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses m ...

on the archipelago (

ARLHS Founded in 2000 by Jim Weidner, K2JXW, the Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society (ARLHS) is devoted to maritime communications, amateur radio, lighthouses, and lightships. Its members travel to lighthouses around the world where they operate amat ...

: SPP-001), built in 1995 to replace a previous one from 1930.

Air France Flight 447

On June 1, 2009,

Air France Flight 447 Air France Flight 447 (AF447 or AFR447) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France. On 1 June 2009, inconsistent airspeed indications led to the pilots inadvertently stalling the Airbus A330 ser ...

, an

Airbus A330-200 The Airbus A330 is a wide-body aircraft developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner in the mid-1970s. Then the company began development on the A330 twinjet in parallel with the A340 ...

jetliner ''en route'' from

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

with 228 persons on board, crashed in the

relatively close to the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, killing all its occupants. Bodies and fragments from the aircraft were found just to the northwest of the archipelago.

Geography

The Saint Peter and Saint Paul Rocks are situated in the Atlantic Ocean, north of the

Equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can also ...

, and are the only group of Brazilian oceanic islets in the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earth's Nort ...

. The nearest point in the Brazilian coast, is Cabo do Calcanhar,

Rio Grande do Norte Rio Grande do Norte (, , ) is one of the states of Brazil. It is located in the northeastern region of the country, forming the northeasternmost tip of the South American continent. The name literally translates as "Great Northern River", re ...

, approximately from the archipelago. The total emerged area is about and the maximum land elevation is , on Nordeste Island. The archipelago is composed of several rocks, five small rocky islets and four larger islets: *Belmonte Islet: *Challenger Islet (also known as São Paulo): *Nordeste Islet (also known as São Pedro): *Cabral Islet: *South Islet: . Their base is over below sea level. None of the islets have a permanent

fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does incl ...

supply available.

Biology

Only the largest of the islets, Belmonte, is vegetated with mosses and grasses. The other rocks are mostly barren, except for some sea algae and fungi that can tolerate the salt spray. The rocks are inhabited by

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same envir ...

s, including the

brown booby The brown booby (''Sula leucogaster'') is a large seabird of the booby family Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species. It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious bro ...

(''Sula leucogaster''),

brown noddy The brown noddy or common noddy (''Anous stolidus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. The largest of the noddies, it can be told from the closely related black noddy by its larger size and plumage, which is dark brown rather than black. The b ...

(''Anous stolidus''), and

black noddy The black noddy or white-capped noddy (''Anous minutus'') is a seabird from the family Laridae. It is a medium-sized species of tern with black plumage and a white cap. It closely resembles the lesser noddy (''Anous tenuirostris'') with which i ...

(''Anous minutus''), as well as

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all th ...

s ('' Grapsus grapsus''),

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pa ...

s, and

spider Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

s. The islands are home to over 100 reef fishes, about 10% of which are found nowhere else in the world, including the extremely colorful ''

Tosanoides aphrodite ''Tosanoides aphrodite'', the Aphrodite anthias, is a species of marine ray-finned fish, from the subfamily Anthiinae part of the family Serranidae, the groupers and sea basses. It was discovered in the Atlantic Ocean in 2018, the only one in its ...

''.

References

External links

Official website

A New Era on the Archipelago of Saint Peter and Saint Paul
Brazilian Navy publication *

First Visit of Brazilian Research Vessel

Penedos de Sao Pedro e São Paulo
{{Authority control Landforms of Pernambuco Ecoregions of Brazil Archipelagoes of Brazil Deserts and xeric shrublands Neotropical ecoregions Archipelagoes of the Atlantic Ocean Islands of the South Atlantic Ocean Mid-Atlantic Ridge

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 ...