The Kerguelen Arch is a former

natural arch A natural arch, natural bridge, or (less commonly) rock arch is a natural landform where an arch has formed with an opening underneath. Natural arches commonly form where inland cliffs, Cliffed coast, coastal cliffs, Fin (geology), fins or Stack ...

on the island of Grande Terre in the

Kerguelen Islands The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the subantarctic, sub-Antarctic region. They are among the Extremes on Earth#Remoteness, most i ...

of the

French Southern and Antarctic Lands The French Southern and Antarctic Lands (, TAAF) is an overseas territory ( or ) of France. It consists of: * Adélie Land (), the French claim on the continent of Antarctica. * Crozet Islands (), a group in the southern Indian Ocean, south ...

, an archipelago in the southern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. Although the arch collapsed sometime between 1908 and 1913, the remaining pillars can be found on the

littoral zone The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely flood ...

of the cape between

Baie de l'Oiseau Baie de l'Oiseau (Bird Bay) is a natural harbour in the Loranchet Peninsula, in the North-Western part of the island Grande Terre, part of the Kerguelen Islands. It was the landing site of the expedition under Yves de Kerguelen in 1772, and ...

and Baie de la Dauphine, north of the Loranchet Peninsula. It is one of the best-known structures of the area, and its twin pillars are depicted on numerous

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...

s of the TAAF. Arche_des_Kerguelen_redux

In literature

Jean-Paul Kauffmann Jean-Paul Kauffmann (born 8 August 1944 in Saint-Pierre-la-Cour, Mayenne) is a French journalist and writer, a former student of the École supérieure de journalisme de Lille (40th class). Biography His great-grandfather Michel Kauffmann lef ...

wrote a book about the search for the Kerguelen Arch and Port-Christmas after he returned from a three-year captivity during the

Lebanon hostage crisis The Lebanon hostage crisis was the kidnapping in Lebanon of 104 foreign hostages between 1982 and 1992, when the Lebanese Civil War was at its height. The hostages were mostly US, Americans and Western Europeans, but 21 national origins were repr ...

.''L'Arche des Kerguelen, Voyage aux îles de la Désolation'',

éditions Flammarion Groupe Flammarion () is a French publishing group, comprising many units, including its namesake, founded in 1876 by Ernest Flammarion, as well as units in distribution, sales, printing and bookshops ( La Hune and Flammarion Center). Flammarion ...

, 1992, . The sixth volume of the comic ''Prométhée'', by Christophe Bec and Stefano Raffaele, published in June 2012, depicts a Kerguelen Arch mysteriously found still standing in 2019, over a century after its collapse.

References

{{coord, -48.6913, 69.0717, type:landmark_region:FR-TF, display=title Natural arches of France Landforms of the Kerguelen Islands Collapsed arches