Gerlache Strait or de Gerlache Strait or Détroit de la Belgica is a

channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Australia in Queensland and pa ...

strait A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the ...

separating 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 Anvers ...

from the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martin 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 Antarctica. ...

. 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 fir ...

, under Lt.

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 t ...

, explored the strait in January and February 1898, naming it for the expedition ship ''

Belgica Gallia Belgica ("Belgic Gaul") was a Roman province, province of the Roman Empire located in the north-eastern part of Roman Gaul, in what is today primarily northern France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, along with parts of the Netherlands and German ...

''. The name was later changed to honor the commander himself. On the expedition in the Gerlache Strait, biologist

Emil Racoviță Emil Gheorghe Racoviță (; 15 November 1868 – 19 November 1947) was a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist, and Antarctic explorer. Together with Grigore Antipa, he was one of the most noted promoters of natural sciences in Ro ...

made several discoveries, including a flightless midge fly that was later (1900) formally named ''

Belgica antarctica ''Belgica antarctica'', the Antarctic midge, is a species of flightless midge, endemic to the continent of Antarctica. At long, it is the largest purely terrestrial animal native to the continent. It also has the smallest known insect genome as ...

'' by the Belgian

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

Jean-Charles Jacobs Jean-Charles Jacobs (1821 – 1907) was a Belgian doctor and entomologist, a pupil of Constantin Wesmael. He graduated in medicine from the University of Brussels, but never abandoned the study of insects, and was one of the founders of the ''S ...

. The Gerlache Strait has spiky blue icebergs, and is frequented by whales. It can be viewed from Spigot Peak.

Geology

Four tectonic blocks are identifiable in the Gerlache Strait area, bounded by two systems of

Tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...

strike-slip fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

s. The longitudinal faults include the SW-NE trending Neumayer Fault that extends from

Peltier Channel Peltier Channel () is a channel 6 nautical miles (11 km) long, in a NE-SW direction, separating Doumer and Wiencke Island Islands to the south of Port Lockroy, in the Palmer Archipelago to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula. Discovered by ...

across

Wiencke Island Wiencke Island is an island long and from wide, about in area, the southernmost of the major islands of the Palmer Archipelago, lying between Anvers Island to its north across the Neumayer Channel and the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsu ...

, and then onwards most likely as the Gerlache Fault. The SW-NE trending Fournier Fault parallels the Gerlache Fault and divides

Anvers Island Anvers Island or Antwerp Island or Antwerpen Island or Isla Amberes is a high, mountainous island long, the largest in the Palmer Archipelago of Antarctica. It was discovered by John Biscoe in 1832 and named in 1898 by the Belgian Antarctic Expe ...

. The transverse faults trend E-W and SE-NW across Wiencke Island and

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 ...

, and include the

Schollaert Channel Schollaert Channel () is a channel in the Antarctic between Anvers Island on the southwest and Brabant Island on the northeast, connecting Dallmann Bay and Gerlache Strait, in the Palmer Archipelago. It was discovered in 1898 by the Belgian Anta ...

faults. The Danco Coast Block extends from

Cape Willems Flandres Bay () is a large bay lying between Cape Renard and Cape Willems, along the west coast of Graham Land, Antarctica. Location Flandres Bay is at the west end of the Danco Coast on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is southwes ...

Wilhelmina Bay Wilhelmina Bay () is a bay wide between the Reclus Peninsula and Cape Anna along the west coast of Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula. Location Wilhelmina Bay is on the Danco Coast on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. It indents t ...

. The Brabant Island Block encompasses the southern portion of that island. The Neumayer Channel Block is bound by the Neumayer Fault and the Fournier Fault. The Anvers-Melchior Islands Block includes northwest Anvers Island and its offshore islands

Melchior Islands The Melchior Islands are a group of many low, ice-covered islands lying near the center of Dallmann Bay between Brabant Island and Anvers Island in the Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica. They were first seen but left unnamed by a German expedition ...

History

In 1934, polar explorer

Lincoln Ellsworth Lincoln Ellsworth (May 12, 1880 – May 26, 1951) was an American polar explorer, engineer, surveyor, and author. He led the first Arctic and Antarctic air crossings. Early life Linn Ellsworth was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 12, 1880. His ...

reported in the ''New York Times'' that a heavy snowstorm and ice made it necessary to change his plan for going from De Gerlache Strait out to sea and south to

Adelaide Island Adelaide Island is a large, mainly ice-covered island, long and wide, lying at the north side of Marguerite Bay off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Ginger Islands lie off the southern end. Mount Bodys is the easternmost mounta ...

. In 1979, four American adventurers survived a two-month expedition to Antarctica. The Washington Post reported that the most dangerous part of their journey was crossing the Gerlache Straight on a raft. The writer Dianne Ackerman said she went to Gerlache Strait in the 1990s in order to find inspiration for writing prose. In 2002,

Lynne Cox Lynne Cox (born January 2, 1957) is an American long-distance open water swimmer, writer, and speaker. She is best known for being the first person to swim between the United States and the Soviet Union, in the Bering Strait, a feat which has ...

became the first person to swim a mile in the near-freezing

Antarctic Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the world ocean, generally taken to be south of 60th parallel south, 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is the seco ...

. She did the swim in Gerlache Strait. In 2021, a couple on a ship in the Gerlache Straight captured footage of a

gentoo penguin The gentoo penguin ( ) (''Pygoscelis papua'') is a penguin species (or possibly a species complex) in the genus ''Pygoscelis'', most closely related to the Adélie penguin (''P. adeliae'') and the chinstrap penguin (''P. antarcticus''). The earl ...

narrowly escaping a few hungry killer whales.

Gallery

Image:Iceberg in the Gerlache, Antarctica.JPG,

Iceberg An iceberg is a piece of fresh water ice more than long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". Much of an i ...

in the Gerlache Image:Iceberg_in_the_Gerlache_Strait,_Antarctica_(6295918548).jpg, Iceberg Image:Gerlache_Strait_-_NOAA.jpg, Gerlache Strait Image:Humpback Whales in the Gerlache Strait, Antarctica (6295482849).jpg,

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 monotypic taxon, only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh u ...

s in the strait Image:Killer Whale in the Gerlache Strait, Antarctica (6086430485).jpg,

Killer whale The orca (''Orcinus orca''), or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. The only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'', it is recognizable by its black-and-white-patterned body. A cosmopolit ...

swimming

References

External links

Gerlache Straight
Straits of the Palmer Archipelago {{More categories, date=September 2024