Seymour Island

Coordinates: 64°14′S 56°37′W / 64.233°S 56.617°W / -64.233; -56.617
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the island near the Antarctic Peninsula. For the island in Canada's Nunavut Territory, see Seymour Island (Nunavut). For other uses, see Seymour Island (disambiguation).

Seymour Island
Seymour Island is located in Antarctic Peninsula
Seymour Island
Seymour Island
Antarctic Peninsula
Geography
LocationAntarctica
Coordinates64°14′S 56°37′W / 64.233°S 56.617°W / -64.233; -56.617
ArchipelagoJames Ross Island group
Administration
None
Demographics
Population0
[1]
Geologic map of Seymour Island, Antarctica

Seymour Island or Marambio Island, is an island in the chain of 16 major islands around the tip of the Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula. Graham Land is the closest part of Antarctica to South America.[2] It lies within the section of the island chain that resides off the west side of the peninsula's northernmost tip. Within that section, it is separated from Snow Hill Island by Picnic Passage, and sits just east of the larger key, James Ross Island, and its smaller, neighboring island, Vega Island.

Seymour Island is sometimes called Marambio Island or Seymour-Marambio Island, taking its resident Argentine base as its namesake (see section, Base Antárctica Marambio, below).

Historic site

A wooden

Otto Nordenskiöld
. The inscription on the plaque, placed where the two parties met, reads:

“10.XI.1903 Uruguay (Argentine Navy) in its journey to give assistance to the Swedish Antarctic expedition”.

The cairn was erected in January 1990 by Argentina at the site of the plaque in commemoration of the same event. The site has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 60), following a proposal by Argentina to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting.[3]

Base Antárctica Marambio

Main article: Marambio Base

Located in the island is the Marambio Base which is the main

ICAO SAWB) for wheeled landing the whole year.[4] In winter the base has an average of 55 crew members, but in summer the population of the base can grow to 180.[5]

Climate

The average temperatures on Seymour Island, as measured at Base Antárctica Marambio, are 1 °C (33.8 °F) during the summer and −21 °C (−5.8 °F) during the winter. In the wintertime, however, strong winds can lower the wind chill temperature feeling to as low as −60 °C (−76 °F) on exposed skin. On 9 February 2020, a temperature of 20.75 °C (69.3 °F) was recorded on the island.[6] However, on 1 July 2021, the World Meteorological Organization invalidated the reading because based on the analysis of the data, the air temperature was recorded in non-standard conditions, leading to bias and errors in the temperature sensor and readings.[7][8]

Paleontological significance

The rocks making up Seymour Island date mainly from the

palaeontology
, due to the unparalleled insight it provides into the geological and palaeontological history of the continent.

In December 1892

penguins and seals. Ever since his voyage on the Jason, the island has been the subject of paleontological
study.

The

mass extinction event occurred at this time in Antarctica just as at lower latitudes.[14]

Seymour Island has also been the site of much study of the

glaciation. Studies of the fine fraction carbonate from sites in the Southern Ocean suggest that, rather than a monotonic decrease in temperature over the Eocene Epoch, the middle of the epoch was punctuated by a brief duration of warming (Bohaty and Zachos, 2003).[15]

Seymour Island has been a site of study of many fossils from this particular part of the Eocene Epoch, during which there was a more flourishing

fossilized species has been studied on the island, including extinct penguin species (such as Palaeeudyptes klekowskii and Archaeospheniscus wimani), various species in the bivalvia class and various types of flora and fauna, including a frog.[15][16]

A fossil

Sudamerica ameghinoi.[19][20][21]

IUGS geological heritage site

In respect of the site being the 'most representative high latitude K-Pg boundary location and one of the most significant and best exposed globally' the 'Cretaceous-Paleogene Transition at Seymour (Marambio) Island' was included by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022. The organisation defines an 'IUGS Geological Heritage Site' as 'a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history.'[22]

Features

See also

References

  1. ^ Administered under the Antarctic Treaty System
  2. ^ ESA Science & Technology: Graham Land
  3. ^ "List of Historic Sites and Monuments approved by the ATCM (2012)" (PDF). Antarctic Treaty Secretariat. 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
  4. ^ Antarctic facilities Archived 2008-04-24 at the Wayback Machine – comnap.aq
  5. ^ official page Archived 2013-12-03 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 13 February 2020.
  7. ^ "WMO verifies one temperature record for Antarctic continent and rejects another". World Meteorological Organization. 1 July 2021. Retrieved 3 July 2021.
  8. ^ "WMO verifies highest temperatures for Antarctic Region". World Meteorological Organization. 1 March 2017. Archived from the original on 18 December 2023. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
  9. ISBN 978-0-520-03973-5
    .
  10. doi:10.33265/polar.v43.9866
    .
  11. ^
    S2CID 132206016
    .
  12. doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1994)022<0675:IADATC>2.3.CO;2
    .
  13. PMID 27377632
    .
  14. PMID 27226414
    .
  15. ^ a b "Middle Eocene Warming On Seymour Island, Antarctica: Continental Shelf Paleotemperatures Recorded In Molluscan Carbonates". Archived from the original on 21 August 2008. Retrieved 9 February 2007.
  16. PMID 32327670
    .
  17. S2CID 32304737
    .
  18. S2CID 2319361
    .
  19. doi:10.1016/S0031-0182(01)00417-5
    .
  20. ISBN 978-1-57607-422-0
  21. S2CID 129493664
    .
  22. ^ "The First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites" (PDF). IUGS International Commission on Geoheritage. IUGS. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
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