Arthur Harbour

Arthur Harbour is a small harbour entered between Bonaparte Point and Norsel Point on the south-west coast of Anvers Island in the Palmer Archipelago of Antarctica.

History

Arthur Harbour was roughly charted by the French Antarctic Expedition (1903–1905) under Jean-Baptiste Charcot. It was surveyed in more detail in 1955 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), who established a station near the head of the harbour. It was named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-names Committee (UK-APC) in 1956 after Oswald Raynor Arthur, then Governor of the Falkland Islands.[1]

Important Bird Area

Some 214 ha of land and sea in northern Arthur Harbour, about 1-2 km north-west of Palmer Station, has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International. The site comprises Norsel Point, Humble Island, Breaker Island, Elephant Rocks and Torgersen Island, along with the intervening marine zone. Some of the islands have been designated Restricted Zones within ASMA 7: Southwest Anvers Island and Palmer Basin. The site is an IBA because it supports colonies of breeding seabirds, jncluding Adélie penguins (11,500 pairs), macaroni penguins, southern giant petrels and imperial shags.[2]

References

  1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Arthur Harbour
  2. "Northern Arthur Harbour area". BirdLife data zone: Important Bird Areas. BirdLife International. 2013. Archived from the original on 2007-07-10. Retrieved 2013-01-11.

Coordinates: 64°46′S 64°04′W / 64.767°S 64.067°W / -64.767; -64.067


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.