The Burdwood Bank, called Namuncurá in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and other countries, is an undersea bank with a

prominence In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...

of approximately , part of the Scotia Arc projecting some from

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

in the

South Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

and located some south of the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

. Argentina claims economic rights over the whole of the bank, while the United Kingdom has designated about half of the bank as part of the Falklands Outer Economic Zone. The Burdwood Bank is one of the four morphological features defined by the isobath off the coast of the Argentine — the other three being the

Patagonian Shelf The Patagonian Shelf — sometimes referred to as Argentine Shelf — is part of the South American continental shelf belonging to the Argentine Sea on the Atlantic seaboard, south of about 35°S. It adjoins the coasts of Argentina and Urugu ...

(Argentine Coastal Shelf), Isla de los Estados and the Falkland Islands. It forms a barrier to the northward flow of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The bank itself (as defined by the isobath) is some from east to west and some from north to south. The channel to the west of the bank is about wide and deep while the channel to the east of the bank is wide and has a depth of up to deep. Burdwood Bank was the location of several landslides some three million years ago. This in turn produced

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

-like events that hit the Falkland Islands on its southern coast. Estimates of the size of the waves vary from up to at the southern coast and up to where the capital,

Port Stanley Stanley (also known as Port Stanley) is the capital city of the Falkland Islands. It is located on the island of East Falkland, on a north-facing slope in one of the wettest parts of the islands. At the 2016 census, the city had a population o ...

, is located.

Fauna

Birds in this area include various species of albatrosses and petrels that feed on the banks and waters of Burdwood Bank: black-browed albatross, grey-headed albatross,

wandering albatross The snowy albatross (''Diomedea exulans''), also known as the wandering albatross, white-winged albatross, or goonie, is a large seabird from the family Diomedeidae Albatrosses, of the biological family (biology), family Diomedeidae, are la ...

, Tristan albatross, northern giant petrel, southern giant petrel, chin petrel White, as well as penguins:

Magellanic penguin The Magellanic penguin (''Spheniscus magellanicus'') is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Patagonia, including Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands, with some bird migration, migrating to Brazil and Uruguay, where they are occas ...

, rockhopper penguin, gentoo penguin,

king penguin The king penguin (''Aptenodytes patagonicus'') is the second largest species of penguin, smaller than but somewhat similar in appearance to the emperor penguin. King penguins mainly eat lanternfish, squid, and krill. On foraging trips, king pen ...

, and pinnipeds such as

sea lion Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

s and

elephant seal Elephant seals or sea elephants are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of ...

s. The Burdwood Bank generates conditions that favor fishing productivity in the area. In the waters surrounding the bank are breeding and spawning sites for many fish species. The species community on the bank is dominated by the small notothenids '' Patagonotothen guntheri'' and Patagonian toothfish. There are also very high levels of

chlorophyll Chlorophyll is any of several related green pigments found in cyanobacteria and in the chloroplasts of algae and plants. Its name is derived from the Greek words (, "pale green") and (, "leaf"). Chlorophyll allows plants to absorb energy ...

References

External links

Burdwood Bank/Namuncurá Marine Protected Area
{{coord, 54, 15, 00, S, 59, 00, 00, W, display=title Landforms of Argentina Landforms of the Falkland Islands Continental shelves Undersea banks of the Atlantic Ocean