Prime Head () is a prominent snow-covered headland which forms the north extremity of 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. ...

Location

Prime Head is the northern tip of

Trinity Peninsula Trinity Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Antarctic Peninsula. It extends northeastward for about 130 km (80 mi) to Cape Dubouzet from an imaginary line connecting Cape Kater on the north-west coast and Cape Longing on the sou ...

, which itself is the tip of the

. It faces the

Bransfield Strait Bransfield Strait or Fleet Sea () is a body of water about wide extending for in a general northeast – southwest direction between the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. History The strait was named in about 1825 by James W ...

, which the Antarctic Sound enters to its east. Casy Island and Coupvent Point are to the west, Mott Snowfield is to the south and Cape Siffrey and Mount Bransfield are to the east. The Gourdin Island and Column Rock are just north of Prime Head.

Name

The name Siffrey was given to a cape in this vicinity by the

French Antarctic Expedition The French Antarctic Expedition is any of several French expeditions in Antarctica. 1837–1840 In 1837, during an 1837–1840 expedition across the deep southern hemisphere, Captain Jules Dumont d'Urville sailed his ship ''Astrolabe'' alo ...

under Captain

Jules Dumont d'Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French List of explorers, explorer and French Navy, naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. As a botanist an ...

, 1837–40, and was previously approved for the feature here described. D'Urville's "Cap Siffrey" has since been identified 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 ...

(UK-APC) as a point two miles to the east-southeast, now called Siffrey Point. The name Prime Head, given by the UK-APC in 1963, alludes to the position of the headland as the first or northernmost feature of Antarctic Peninsula.

Nearby features

Siffrey Point

. A low rocky point projecting from the north coast of Trinity Peninsula, west-northwest of Cape Dubouzet. The feature is a reidentification of "Cap Siffrey," named by Captain Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1838.

Gourdin Island

. Largest island in a group of islands and rocks north of Prime Head. Discovered by a French expedition, 1837-40, under Captain Jules Dumont d'Urville, and named by him for Ensign Jean Gourdin of the expedition ship ''Astrolabe''. The island was reidentified and charted by the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) was an aerial survey of the Falkland Islands Dependencies The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the v ...

(FIDS) in 1945-47.

Column Rock

. A conspicuous rock pinnacle north of Gourdin Island. The descriptive name was applied by the

(UK-APC).

Zélée Rocks

. A group of rocks, some of which are above water and others near the surface, lying in Bransfield Strait north of Prime Head. Discovered by the French expedition, 1837-40, under Captain Jules Dumont d'Urville, and named by him after the expedition ship ''Zélée''.

References

Sources

* * * {{Include-USGov , agency=United States Geological Survey Headlands of Trinity Peninsula