Sparkes Bay () is a
bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
, 1 nautical mile (1.9 km) wide and indenting 2.5 nautical miles (4.6 km) between
Mitchell Peninsula
Mitchell Peninsula () is a rocky peninsula, long and wide, lying between O'Brien Bay and Sparkes Bay at the east side of the Windmill Islands, Antarctica. It was first mapped from aerial photographs taken by U.S. Navy Operation Highjump in Febr ...
on the north and
Robinson Ridge and
Odbert Island on the south, in the
Windmill Islands
The Windmill Islands are an Antarctic group of rocky islands and rocks about wide, paralleling the coast of Wilkes Land for immediately north of Vanderford Glacier along the east side of Vincennes Bay. Kirkby Shoal is a small shoal area w ...
. First mapped from air photos taken by
U.S. Navy Operation Highjump and
Operation Windmill
Operation Windmill (OpWml) was the United States Navy's Second Antarctica Developments Project, an exploration and training mission to Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost enti ...
in 1947 and 1948. Named by the
Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names
The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN or US-ACAN) is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending commemorative names for features in Antarctica.
History
The committee was established ...
(US-ACAN) for Lieutenant
Robert S. Sparkes,
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...
, military leader at
Wilkes Station
Wilkes Station was an Antarctic research station established 29 January 1957 by the United States as one of seven U.S. stations established for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) program in Antarctica. It was taken over by Australia on ...
in 1958.
Bays of Wilkes Land
{{WilkesLand-geo-stub