The Fildes Peninsula is a long peninsula that forms the south-western end of King George Island in the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands, Antarctic islands located in the Drake Passage with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the n ...

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

. It was named from association with nearby Fildes Strait by the

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) an ...

in 1960; the strait was likely named for Robert Fildes, a British sealer of the 1800s.

Description

The peninsula is the most extensively snow-free coastal area in summer on the island, most of which is permanently covered by ice. Its southeastern end is a point called Halfthree Point. It was charted and named by

Discovery Investigations The Discovery Investigations were a series of scientific cruises and shore-based investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Ocean. They were funded by the British Colonial Office and organised by the Discovery Committee in London, ...

personnel on the '' Discovery II'' in 1935. It is part of the Fildes Peninsula

Antarctic Specially Protected Area An Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) is an area on the continent of Antarctica, or on nearby islands, which is protected by scientists and several different international bodies. The protected areas were established in 1961 under the Antarc ...

(ASPA 125), designated as such because of its

paleontological Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

values. It is separated at its tip from Nelson Island by Fildes Strait, only 370 m wide at its narrowest. It is bounded on its south-east coast by Maxwell Bay, which is also known as Fildes Bay, and on its north-west by the open waters of the

Southern 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 ...

. Geologically, the peninsula is a tableland made up of old coastal landforms, with numerous rocky outcrops and an average height of 30 m above sea level. Research stations on the peninsula include

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

’s Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva and Profesor Julio Escudero Base,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

’s Great Wall Station,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

’s Bellingshausen Station and

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

’s Artigas Base. Running E-W between Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, and Nelson Island, was known to the nineteenth-century sealers; charted and named Filde's icStrait or Sound by Capt. Robert Fildes, English sealing captain from Liverpool, who visited the South Shetland Islands in the brig Cora, 1820–21, and in the brig Robert, 1821–22, and who prepared the first comprehensive sailing directions for the islands (Fildes, 1821c).

Antarctic specially protected area

Eight separate sites on the peninsula have been collectively designated an

(ASPA 125), largely because of their

values. The area contains outcrops with

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s dating from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

to the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

, including

footprints Footprints are the impressions or images left behind by a person walking or running. Hoofprints and pawprints are those left by animals with hoof, hooves or paws rather than foot, feet, while "shoeprints" is the specific term for prints made by ...

of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals, as well as plant fossils with impressions of leaves and fronds, trunks, and pollen grains and spores. Sites comprising the ASPA are Fossil Hill, Holz Stream, Glacier Dome Bellingshausen, Halfthree Point, Suffield Point, Fossil Point, Gradzinski Cove and Skua Cove.

References

Antarctic Specially Protected Areas Peninsulas of King George Island (South Shetland Islands) Paleontological sites of Antarctica {{KingGeorgeIslandAQ-geo-stub

Description

Antarctic specially protected area

See also

References