Paulet Island is a

circular Circular may refer to: * The shape of a circle * ''Circular'' (album), a 2006 album by Spanish singer Vega * Circular letter (disambiguation) ** Flyer (pamphlet), a form of advertisement * Circular reasoning, a type of logical fallacy * Circular ...

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 isla ...

about in diameter, lying south-east of

Dundee Island Dundee Island is an ice-covered island lying east of the northeastern tip of Antarctic Peninsula and south of Joinville Island. It is named after the city of Dundee in Scotland. The Petrel Base is a scientific station in Antarctica belongin ...

, off the north-eastern end of the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

. Because of its large penguin colony, it is a popular destination for sightseeing tours.

Description

The island is composed of

lava flow Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

s capped by a

cinder cone A cinder cone (or scoria cone) is a steep conical hill of loose pyroclastic fragments, such as volcanic clinkers, volcanic ash, or scoria that has been built around a volcanic vent. The pyroclastic fragments are formed by explosive eruption ...

with a small summit crater. Geothermal heat keeps parts of the island ice-free, and the youthful morphology of the volcano suggests that it was last active within the last 1,000 years. The island is part of the

James Ross Island Volcanic Group The James Ross Island Volcanic Group is a stratigraphic unit of Cenozoic age distributed on James Ross Island and Vega Island of the James Ross Island group, the Tabarin and Trinity peninsulas of Graham Land and surrounding islands in the Princ ...

Historic monuments

Paulet Island was discovered by a British expedition (1839–1843) under

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 ...

and named by him for

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

the Right Honorable ''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is ...

Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage ...

George Paulet,

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

. In 1903 during the

Swedish Antarctic Expedition The Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1903 was a scientific expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld and Carl Anton Larsen. It was the first Swedish endeavour to Antarctica in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Background Otto Nordensk ...

led by Otto Nordenskiöld his ship ''

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and othe ...

'' was crushed and sunk by the ice off the coast of the island. A stone hut built in February 1903 by shipwreck survivors, together with the grave of an expedition member, and the

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...

built on the highest point of the island to draw the attention of rescuers, have been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 41), following a proposal by Argentina and the United Kingdom to the

Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting russian: link=no, Договор об Антарктике es, link=no, Tratado Antártico , name = Antarctic Treaty System , image = Flag of the Antarctic Treaty.svgborder , image_width = 180px , caption ...

. The shipwrecked crew of the ''

Endurance Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from an ...

'' original plan was to travel to the island and use stores there that were left by the above Swedish Expedition but the ice pack that they were stranded on eventually drifted too far east.

Important Bird Area

The island has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Inte ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

because it supports a very large breeding colony of about 100,000 pairs of

Adélie penguin The Adélie penguin (''Pygoscelis adeliae'') is a species of penguin common along the entire coast of the Antarctic continent, which is the only place where it is found. It is the most widespread penguin species, and, along with the emperor pen ...

s. Other birds known to nest on the island include

imperial shag The imperial shag or imperial cormorant (''Leucocarbo atriceps'') is a black and white cormorant native to southern South America, primarily in rocky coastal regions, but locally also at large inland lakes. Some taxonomic authorities, including ...

snow petrel The snow petrel (''Pagodroma nivea'') is the only member of the genus ''Pagodroma.'' It is one of only three birds that has been seen at the Geographic South Pole, along with the Antarctic petrel and the south polar skua, which have the most s ...

s and

kelp gull The kelp gull (''Larus dominicanus''), also known as the Dominican gull, is a gull that breeds on coasts and islands through much of the Southern Hemisphere. The nominate ''L. d. dominicanus'' is the subspecies found around South America, part ...

Gallery

Image:Paulet Island.jpg, Paulet Island (February 2007) Image:Paulet Island Adelie Pinguin Kolonie.JPG, Adelie penguin colony on Paulet Island Image:Paulet-102.jpg, Paulet Island (December 2021)

References

Bibliography

* ''Antarctica''. Sydney: Reader's Digest, 1985, pp. 152–159. * Child, Jack. ''Antarctica and South American Geopolitics: Frozen Lebensraum''. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988, pp. 69, 72. * Lonely Planet, ''Antarctica: a Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit'', Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996, 302. * Stewart, Andrew, ''Antarctica: An Encyclopedia''. London: McFarland and Co., 1990 (2 volumes), p 752. * U.S. National Science Foundation, ''Geographic Names of the Antarctic'', Fred G. Alberts, ed. Washington: NSF, 1980. *

External links

More information about Paulet Island

{{Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Mountains of Graham Land Volcanoes of Graham Land Landforms of Graham Land Active volcanoes Islands of the Joinville Island group Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Seabird colonies Historic Sites and Monuments of Antarctica Penguin colonies