Balleny Islands

Balleny Islands

File:Balleny Map.jpg Map of the Balleny Islands
Location in Antarctica
Geography
Location	Antarctica
Coordinates
Archipelago	Balleny Islands
Area
Highest elevation	1,705 m (5,594 ft)
Highest point	Brown Peak
Country
None
Demographics
Population	Uninhabited
Additional information
Administered under the Antarctic Treaty System

File:Balleny Islands and Antarctic coast.jpg

The Balleny Islands and Antarctic coast from space, December 2007

The Balleny Islands () are a series of uninhabited islands in the Southern Ocean extending from 66°15' to 67°35'S and 162°30' to 165°00'E. The group extends for about 160 km (99 mi) in a northwest-southeast direction. The islands are heavily glaciated and of volcanic origin. Glaciers project from their slopes into the sea. The islands were formed by the so-called Balleny hotspot.

The group includes three main islands: Young, Buckle and Sturge, which lie in a line from northwest to southeast, and several smaller islets and rocks:

• northeast of Young Island: Seal Rocks, Pillar
• southeast of Young Island: Row Island, Borradaile Island (with Swan Base shelter hut)
• south of Buckle Island: Scott Cone, Chinstrap Islet, Sabrina Islet (with Sabrina Refuge shelter hut), and The Monolith

The islands are part of the Ross Dependency, claimed by New Zealand (see Territorial claims in Antarctica).

Islands and rocks from north to south

Island/Rock	Area		Highest peak
	km2	sq mi	m	ft
Young Island and satellite islets
Seal Rocks	0.0	0	15	49
Pillar	0.0	0	51	167
Young Island	255.4	98.6	1,340	4,400 (Freeman Peak)
Row Island	1.7	0.66	183	600
Borradaile Island	3.5	1.4	381	1,250
Beale Pinnacle	0.0	0	61	200
Buckle Island and satellite islets
Buckle Island	123.6	47.7	1,238	4,062
Scott Cone	0.0	0	31	102
Eliza Cone	0.0	0	67	220
Chinstrap Islet	0.0	0
Sabrina Island	0.2	0.077	90	300
The Monolith	0.1	0.039	79	259
Sturge Island (no satellite islets)
Sturge Island	437.4	168.9	1,705 or 1524	5,594 or 5,000 (Brown Peak)

The Antarctic Circle is close to Borradaile Island, in the eight kilometre channel between Young and Buckle Islands. Buckle Island and the nearby Sabrina Islet are home to several colonies of Adelie and chinstrap penguins.

The English whaling captains John Balleny and Thomas Freeman first sighted the group during 1839: Freeman was the first person to land on any of the islands on February 9, 1839, and it was the first landing south of the Antarctic Circle. The islands' area totals 400 km² (154 sq mi) and the highest point reaches 1,705 m (5,594 ft) or 1,524 m (5,000 ft) (the unclimbed Brown Peak on Sturge Island).

Geology

In the archipelago, the Buckle, Sturge and Young Islands are examples of stratovolcanoes. Strong earthquakes very close to the islands are rare, but tremors of moderate strength do occur over the Pacific–Antarctic Ridge, Macquarie Triple Junction and Pacific Rim between the Balleny Islands and Macquarie Island. Other earthquakes occur near the Southeast Indian Ridge and Balleny Fracture Zone, including a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in 1998 that struck just over 700 km (430 mi) west-northwest of the Islands.

See also

• Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
• List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S
• SCAR
• Territorial claims in Antarctica