Montagu Island

Montagu Island

South Sandwich Islands.
Location of Montagu Island
Geography
Coordinates
Archipelago	South Sandwich Islands
Length	12 km (7.5 mi)
Width	10 km (6 mi)
Highest elevation	1,370 m (4,490 ft)
Highest point	Mount Belinda
Country
United Kingdom
Demographics
Population	Uninhabited

Montagu Island is the largest of the South Sandwich Islands, located in the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica. It is a part of the British Overseas Territory, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and has the only active volcano under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. It is located 60 km northeast from Bristol Island and 62 km south from Saunders Island.

The island was first sighted by James Cook in 1775, and named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich and the First Lord of the British Admiralty at the time of its discovery. The first recorded landing was made by the British-Norwegian arctic explorer Carl Anton Larsen in 1908.

Geography

The desolate, uninhabited island measures approximately 12 by 10 kilometres (7.5 by 6.2 mi), with over 90% of its surface permanently covered in ice. The volcano Mount Belinda is its most notable geographic feature, rising to 1,370 metres (4,495 ft) above sea level. It was believed to be inactive prior to the sighting of low-level ash emission and suspected lava effusion in 2002 by the British Antarctic Survey.

Mount Belinda

In November 2005, satellite images revealed that an eruption of Mount Belinda had created a 90-metre (295 ft) wide molten river flowing to the northern shoreline of the island. The event has expanded the area of the island by 0.2 square kilometres (0.077 sq mi), and provided some of the first scientific observations of volcanic eruptions taking place underneath an ice sheet.

As of 8 August 2009, imaging on Google Earth shows the volcano to be active with a noticeable plume and lava flow. The effects on the ice sheet are visible.

Gallery

• 

  NASA satellite photograph of Montagu Island.

• 

  Captain Carl Anton Larsen.

See also

• List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands

References

Sources

• First recorded eruption of Mount Belinda volcano (Montagu Island), South Sandwich Islands, Bull Volcanol (2005) 67:415–422 (PDF)

External links

• Montagu Island - The Island Eencyclopedia at the Wayback Machine (archived December 23, 2010) at Oceandots.com