The Scotia Sea is a

sea A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order section ...

located at the northern edge 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 ...

at its boundary with 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 ...

. It is bounded on the west by the Drake Passage and on the north, east, and south by the Scotia Arc, an undersea ridge and

island arc Island arcs are long archipelago, chains of active volcanoes with intense earthquake, seismic activity found along convergent boundary, convergent plate tectonics, tectonic plate boundaries. Most island arcs originate on oceanic crust and have re ...

system supporting various islands. The sea sits atop the Scotia Plate. It is named after the expedition ship ''Scotia''. Many

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 ...

s melt there.

Location and description

The Scotia Sea is the area of water between the Drake Passage,

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South America, South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main is ...

South Georgia South Georgia is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. ...

, the South Sandwich Islands, the

South Orkney Islands The South Orkney Islands are a group of List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands, islands in the Southern Ocean, about north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula 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. ...

. These island groups all sit atop the Scotia Arc, which frames the sea on the north, east, and south. The Scotia Sea covers an area around . About half of the sea stands above the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

History

The sea was named about 1932 after the '' Scotia'', the expedition ship used in these waters by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902–04) under William S. Bruce. The most famous traverse of this frigid sea was made near the end of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1916 by Sir

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarcti ...

and five others in the adapted lifeboat ''James Caird''. They left Elephant Island, just off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and reached

South Georgia Island South Georgia is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. ...

two weeks later. It was a distance of nearly 900 miles and the sun was only sighted for navigational fixes four times during the entire journey. 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 ...

, the Scotia Sea is considered part of an area known as the ''Mar Argentino'', and several territories claimed but not occupied by Argentina, such as South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, lie within this region.

Flora and fauna

The islands bordering the Scotia Sea are rocky and partly covered in ice and snow year round; despite these harsh conditions, however, the islands do support vegetation and have been described as the

Scotia Sea Islands tundra The Scotia Sea Islands tundra is a tundra ecoregion (WWF AN1103) which includes several island groups – South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, South Shetland Islands, and Bouvet Island – in the Scotia Sea, where the South Atlantic Ocea ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

, which includes South Georgia, the volcanic South Sandwich Islands, and the South Orkneys in the Scotia Sea, as well as the remote

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 ...

near the Antarctic Peninsula and the small isolated volcano called Bouvet Island. All these islands lie in the cold seas below the

Antarctic Convergence The Antarctic Convergence or Antarctic Polar Front is a marine belt encircling Antarctica, varying in latitude seasonally, where cold, northward-flowing Antarctic waters meet the relatively warmer waters of the sub-Antarctic. The line separate ...

. These areas support

tundra In physical geography, a tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three regions and associated types of tundra: #Arctic, Arctic, Alpine tundra, Alpine, and #Antarctic ...

vegetation consisting of

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

es,

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

s, and

algae Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthesis, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular ...

, while seabirds, penguins, and seals feed in the surrounding waters. Seabirds include four main species of albatross: black-browed albatross ''( Thalassarche melanophris)'', grey-headed albatross ''( Thalassarche chrysostoma)'', light-mantled albatross ''( Phoebetria palpebrata)'', and snowy albatross ''( Diomedea exulans)''. Only five species of land birds remain on the islands, and these include an endemic race of the yellow-billed pintail duck ''( Anas georgica)'' and the endemic South Georgia pipit ''( Anthus antarcticus)''. Other birds include the southern giant petrel, with sizeable colonies on Bird Island.

Penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

species found here include large numbers of king penguins on South Georgia especially, as well as chinstrap penguin, macaroni penguin, gentoo penguin, Adelie penguin, and rockhopper penguin ''( Eudyptes chrysocome)''. Seals include the Antarctic fur seal ''( Arctocephalus gazella)'' and sub-Antarctic fur seal ''( Arctocephalus tropicalis)'' in large numbers, leopard seal ''(Hydrurga leptonyx)'', Weddell seal ''(Leptonychotes weddellii)'', the huge southern elephant seal ''(Mirounga leonina)'', and crabeater seal ''(Lobodon carcinophagus)''.

Threats and preservation

Although the Scotia Arc islands have a harsh climate and have never been permanently occupied, they have long been used as a base for fishing and seal hunting. Wildlife on these remote islands is threatened by

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

, especially on South Georgia, where even large animals, including (now removed)

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

, have been brought to the islands. Further damage to ecosystems results from overfishing. South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, and Bouvet Island are protected as nature reserves, with

Bird Island, South Georgia Bird Island () is long and wide, separated from the western end of South Georgia by Bird Sound. It is part of the British overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, also claimed by Argentina as part of Tierra del Fueg ...

, being a

site of special scientific interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. The seals are further protected by international agreements, and fur seal populations are recovering.

References

{{Authority control Marginal seas of the Atlantic Ocean Seas of the Southern Ocean Tundra Antarctic region 1930s neologisms

Location and description

History

Flora and fauna

Threats and preservation

See also

References