Siple Island is a long snow-covered island lying east of
Wrigley Gulf along the
Getz Ice Shelf off
Bakutis Coast of
Marie Byrd Land
Marie Byrd Land (MBL) is an unclaimed region of Antarctica. With an area of , it is the largest unclaimed territory on Earth. It was named after the wife of American naval officer Richard E. Byrd, who explored the region in the early 20th centur ...
,
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest co ...
. Its centre is located at .
Its area is and it is dominated by the dormant
shield volcano Mount Siple
Mount Siple is a potentially active Antarctic shield volcano, rising to and dominating the northwest part of Siple Island, which is separated from the Bakutis Coast, Marie Byrd Land, by the Getz Ice Shelf. Its youthful appearance strongly s ...
, rising to — making this the
15th ranking island in the world by maximum
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...
.
The feature was first indicated as an island on
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maps compiled from ground surveys and
U.S. Navy air photos, 1959–65.
Island and mountain were named by the
United States Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) in 1967 in honour of the American Antarctic explorer
Paul A. Siple Paul Allman Siple (December 18, 1908 – November 25, 1968) was an American Antarctic explorer and geographer who took part in six Antarctic expeditions, including the two Byrd expeditions of 1928–1930 and 1933–1935, representing the Boy Scouts ...
(1909–1968), member of
Admiral Byrd's expeditions.
Geographic features
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The Blob - mound-shaped knoll
*
Recely Bluff - bluff on northeast slope of Mount Siple.
See also
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Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
The Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica (CGA) of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the authoritative international gazetteer containing all Antarctic toponyms published in national gazetteers, plus basic information about ...
*
List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands
*
List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S
*
List of volcanoes in Antarctica
*
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
*
Territorial claims in Antarctica
Seven sovereign states – Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom – have made eight territorial claims in Antarctica. These countries have tended to place their Antarctic scientific observation and st ...
References
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Islands of Marie Byrd Land
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