Anvers Island or Antwerp Island or Antwerpen Island or Isla Amberes is a high, mountainous

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

long, the largest in the

Palmer Archipelago Palmer Archipelago, also known as Antarctic Archipelago, Archipiélago Palmer, Antarktiske Arkipel or Palmer Inseln, is a group of islands off the northwestern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It extends from Tower Island in the north to Anver ...

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 ...

. It was discovered by

John Biscoe John Biscoe (28 April 1794 – 1843) was an English mariner and explorer who commanded the first expedition known to have sighted the areas named Enderby Land and Graham Land along the coast of Antarctica. The expedition also found a number of is ...

in 1832 and named in 1898 by the

Belgian Antarctic Expedition The Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899 was the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic region. Led by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery aboard the RV ''Belgica'', it was the first Belgian Antarctic expedition and is considered the firs ...

under

Adrien de Gerlache Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery (; 2 August 1866 – 4 December 1934) was a Belgian officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–99. Early years Born in Hasselt in eastern Belgium as th ...

after the province of Antwerp in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. It lies

south-west The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

Brabant Island Brabant Island is the second largest island of the Palmer Archipelago within the British Antarctic Territory, lying between Anvers Island and Liège Island. Brabant Island is long north-south, wide, and rises to in Mount Parry. The interi ...

at the south-western end of the group. The south-western coastline of the island forms part of the

Southwest Anvers Island and Palmer Basin Southwest Anvers Island and Palmer Basin is a 3275 km2 Antarctic Specially Managed Area (ASMA 7). It lies towards the northern end of the Antarctic Peninsula, encompassing the south-western coastline of Anvers Island, in the Palmer Archipe ...

Antarctic Specially Managed Area An Antarctic Specially Managed Area (ASMA) is a protected area on the continent of Antarctica, or on its adjacent islands. ASMAs are managed by the governments of Brazil, Poland, Ecuador, Peru, United States, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Spain, U ...

(ASMA 7).

Cormorant Island Cormorant Island is a 10 ha island lying in Bismarck Strait 1 km south of Anvers Island, east-south-east of Bonaparte Point, in the Palmer Archipelago of Antarctica. It lies some 5 km to the south-east of the United States' Palm ...

, an Important Bird Area, lies 1 km off the south coast.

Palmer Station

The Palmer Station on Anvers Island is located at () and is Antarctica's only U.S. station north of 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 ...

. Construction finished in 1968. Around 50 people can inhabit Palmer Station at one time. The station is named for Nathaniel B. Palmer, likely to have been one of the first three persons to see Antarctica. There are science labs in the station, as well as a dock.

The former station of the British Antarctic Survey

On Anvers Island, the British Antarctic Survey built and operated a station (Base N) for the purpose of survey and geology. It consisted of a

hut A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, ice, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, hid ...

and was occupied from February 27, 1955, until January 10, 1958. In 1958, the station was closed when local work was completed. Its hut was loaned to the U.S. Government on July 2, 1963, which converted it into a biological laboratory in January 1965 for use by American scientists at the nearby

Palmer Station Palmer Station is a United States research station in Antarctica located on Anvers Island, the only US station located north of the Antarctic Circle. Initial construction of the station finished in 1968. The station, like the other U.S. Antarcti ...

. The British station was open in support of an air facility from 1969 until 1971. It was destroyed by fire on December 28, 1971, while being renovated by the British Antarctic Survey. Debris was removed by the members of the

US Antarctic Program The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the A ...

in 1990/1991. Only concrete foundations remain. A skiway was in use from 1969 to 1973. The air operations were transferred to Adelaide (Station T) in 1973 when the skiway deteriorated. The skiway remained intermittently in use until November 15, 1993.

Ship aground

On 11 February 1972 the Lindblad Explorer ran aground near La Plaza Point, Antarctica. She was towed to

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

, Argentina and then to

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporati ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

for repairs. On 28 January 1989 the ARA Bahía Paraíso sank off Palmer Station and Anvers.

D'Abnour Bay

D'Abnour Bay is a small bay east-southeast of Cape Gronland in northern Anvers Island,

. First charted by the

French Antarctic Expedition The French Antarctic Expedition is any of several French expeditions in Antarctica. First expedition In 1772, Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec and the naturalist Jean Guillaume Bruguière sailed to the Antarctic region in search of the fabl ...

(1903–05) under

J.B. Charcot Jean-Baptiste-Étienne-Auguste Charcot (15 July 1867 – 16 September 1936), born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a French scientist, medical doctor and polar scientist. His father was the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893). Life Jean-Bapt ...

, who named the bay for French naval officer Contre-amiral Richard d'Abnour.

Geology

The Anvers-Melchior Islands Tectonic Block includes the northwest portion of Anvers Island and the

Melchior Islands The Melchior Islands are a group of many low, ice-covered islands lying near the center of Dallmann Bay in the Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica. They were first seen but left unnamed by a German expedition under Eduard Dallmann, 1873–74. The isl ...

offshore. The block is bounded on the southeast by the SW-NE trending strike-slip Fournier Fault. The block is composed of a volcanic suite which may correspond to the Antarctic Peninsula

Volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

Group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...

Granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

diorite Diorite ( ) is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is intermediate in composition between low-sili ...

, and

tonalite Tonalite is an igneous, plutonic ( intrusive) rock, of felsic composition, with phaneritic (coarse-grained) texture. Feldspar is present as plagioclase (typically oligoclase or andesine) with alkali feldspar making up less than 10% of the total ...

plutons indicate three phases of intrusion dated at 68-54 Ma, 34 Ma, and 21-20 Ma. Two distinct systems of dykes are present, possibly of

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

age. The southeast portion of Anvers Island is part of the Neumayer Channel Tectonic Block.

Cultural references

Anvers Island was the scene of the protagonist Grim Fiddle's "kingdom" and his later imprisonment in John Calvin Batchelor's novel '' The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica''. Fiddle was an adventurer in a dystopian future world with many references to Norse mythology.

Features

* Félicie Point, forms the south end of Lion Island, lying immediately east of Anvers Island * Hippolyte Point, marks the northeast end of Lion Island, lying immediately east of Anvers Island * Lion Sound, a small passage between Lion Island and the southeast coast of Anvers Island * Zeus Ridge, a heavily crevassed ridge in central Anvers Island

References

External links

Anvers Island on summitpost website

updated long term weather for Anvers Island

weather statistics for Anvers Island
* * Anvers Island on the Palmer Station LocalWiki {{Authority control Islands of the Palmer Archipelago