Gough Island

Gough Island

View of Gough Island
Gough Island
Geography
Location	South Atlantic Ocean
Coordinates	40°19′S 9°56′W / 40.32°S 9.94°W / -40.32; -9.94Coordinates: 40°19′S 9°56′W / 40.32°S 9.94°W / -40.32; -9.94
Archipelago	Tristan da Cunha
Area	91 km2 (35 sq mi)
Length	13 km (8.1 mi)
Width	7 km (4.3 mi)
Highest elevation	910 m (2,990 ft)
Highest point	Edinburgh Peak
Administration
United Kingdom
St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha

Map of Gough island

Gough Island /ˈɡɒf/, also known historically as Gonçalo Álvares (after the Portuguese explorer) or mistakenly as Diego Alvarez, is a volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a dependency of Tristan da Cunha and part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. It is uninhabited except for the personnel of a weather station (usually six people) which the South African National Antarctic Programme has maintained continually on the island since 1956. It is one of the most remote places with a constant human presence.

Gough Island and Inaccessible Island comprise the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Gough and Inaccessible Islands.

Name

The island was first named Ilha de Gonçalo Álvares on Portuguese maps. It was named Gough Island after Captain Charles Gough of the Richmond who sighted the island in 1732. Confusion of the unusual Portuguese saint name Gonçalo with Spanish Diego led to the misnomer "Diego Alvarez island" in English sources from the 1800s to 1930s.^[1][2][3] However, the most likely explanation is that it was simply a misreading of 'Is de Go Alvarez', the name by which the island is represented on some of the early charts, the 'de Go' mutating into 'Diego'.^[4]

History

The details of the discovery of Gough Island are unclear, but the most likely occasion is July 1505 by the Portuguese explorer Gonçalo Álvares.^[5] Maps during the next three centuries named the island after him. On some later maps, this was erroneously given as Diego Alvarez. According to some historians, the English merchant Anthony de la Roché was the first to land on the island, in spring 1675.^[6]

Charles Gough rediscovered the island on 3 March 1732, thinking it was Gonçalo Álvares.^[7] It had been named Gonçalo Álvares since 1505 after the captain of Vasco da Gama's flagship on his epic voyage to the east, and under this name it was marked with reasonable accuracy on the charts of the South Atlantic during the following 230 or so years. Then, in 1732, Captain Gough of the British ship Richmond reported the discovery of a new island, which he placed 400 miles to the east of Gonçalo Álvares. Fifty years later cartographers realised that the two islands were the same, and despite the priority of the Portuguese discovery, and the greater accuracy of the position given by them, "Gough's Island" was the name adopted.^[8]

In the early 19th century, sealers sometimes briefly inhabited the island. The earliest known example is a sealing gang from the US ship Amethyst which remained on the island in 1806–1807.

Gough Island was claimed only in 1938, for Britain, during a visit by HMS Milford of the Royal Navy.^[9]

In 1995 Gough Island was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site of Gough Island. In 2004 the site was extended to include Inaccessible Island and renamed Gough and Inaccessible Islands.

Geography and geology

Gough Island is roughly rectangular with a length of 13 km (8.1 mi) and a width of 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). It has an area of 91 km² (35 sq mi) and rises to heights of over 900 m (3,000 ft) above sea level.^[10] Topographic features include the highest Peak, Edinburgh Peak, Hags Tooth, Mount Rowett, Sea Elephant Bay, Quest Bay, and Hawkins Bay.

It includes small satellite islands and rocks such as Southwest Island, Saddle Island (South), Tristiana Rock, Isolda Rock (West), Round Island, Cone Island, Lot's Wife, Church Rock (North), Penguin Island (Northeast), and The Admirals (East). It is a remote, rugged and lonely place, about 400 km (250 mi) south-east of the other islands in the Tristan da Cunha group, 2,700 km (1,700 mi) from Cape Town, and over 3,200 km (2,000 mi) from the nearest point of South America.

Climate

The islands have a cool-temperate oceanic climate, and lie on the edge of the roaring forties. Gough Island's temperatures are very solid between 11 °C (52 °F) and 17 °C (63 °F) during the day year-round, due to its isolated position far out in the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic is much cooler in the southern hemisphere than the northern, but frosts are still very rare. As a result, summers are extremely cool. Precipitation is high for all of the year.

Fauna and flora

The fern Blechnum and tree Phylica on Gough Island

Gough and Inaccessible Island are a protected wildlife reserve, which has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It has been described as one of the least disrupted ecosystems of its kind and one of the best shelters for nesting seabirds in the Atlantic. In particular, it is host to almost the entire world population of the Tristan albatross (Diomedea dabbenena) and the Atlantic petrel (Pterodroma incerta).^[14] The island is also home to the almost flightless Gough moorhen,^[15] and the critically endangered Gough bunting.

Birds

The Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross, which breeds on the island

The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International for its endemic landbirds and as a breeding site for seabirds. Birds for which the IBA has conservation significance include northern rockhopper penguins (30,000 breeding pairs), Tristan albatrosses (1500–2000 pairs), sooty albatrosses (5000 pairs), Atlantic yellow-nosed albatrosses (5000 pairs), broad-billed prions (1,750,000 pairs), Kerguelen petrels (20,000 pairs), soft-plumaged petrels (400,000 pairs), Atlantic petrels (900,000 pairs), great-winged petrels (5000 pairs), grey petrels (10,000 pairs), great shearwaters (100,000 pairs), little shearwaters (10,000 pairs), grey-backed storm petrels (10,000 pairs), white-faced storm petrels (10,000 pairs), white-bellied storm petrels (10,000 pairs), Antarctic terns (500 pairs), southern skuas (500 pairs), Gough moorhens (2500 pairs) and Gough buntings (3000 individuals).^[16]

Mammals

The island has a large breeding population of subantarctic fur seals and some southern right whales still migrate around the island.

House mice are currently present on the island. (see Invasive Species)

Invasive species

Pearlwort (Sagina procumbens)

In 1998 a number of procumbent pearlwort (Sagina procumbens) plants were found on the island which are capable of dramatically transforming the upland plant ecosystem (as it has on the Prince Edward Islands). ^[17] Eradication efforts are ongoing but are expected to require years of 'concerted effort'. ^[18]

House mice

In April 2007 researchers published evidence that predation by introduced house mice on seabird chicks is occurring at levels that might drive the Tristan albatross and the Atlantic petrel to extinction.^[19] The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds awarded £62,000 by the UK government's Overseas Territories Environment Programme to fund additional research on the Gough Island mice and a feasibility study of how best to deal with them. The grant also paid for the assessment of a rat problem on Tristan da Cunha island. Trials for a method of eradicating the mice through baiting were commenced,^[20] and ultimately a £7.6m eradication programme was planned, and set to begin in 2019, with the island expected to be mouse free by 2021.^[21] The programme will use helicopters to drop cereal pellets laced with the rodenticide, brodifacoum. As of May 2016, it is estimated that the mice are killing as many as 600,000 chicks a year on the island, threatening the extinction of several species of seabirds that breed exclusively or nearly exclusively on Gough Island.^[21]

Weather station

A weather station has been operating on Gough Island since 1956. It is operated as part of the network of the South African Weather Service. Because cold fronts approach South Africa from the south-west, the Gough station is particularly important in forecasting winter weather. Initially it was housed in the station at The Glen, but moved to the South Western lowlands of the island in 1963 where weather observations are more accurate.

Human presence

Each year a new overwintering team arrives by ship (currently the S. A. Agulhas II) to man the weather station and perform scientific research. The team for a particular year may be termed as "Gough" and an expedition number - e.g. "Gough 58" for 2013 denoting the 58th expedition to Gough Island (the 1956 team were Gough 01). The new team replaces the previous one thereby maintaining a continual human presence on the island.^{[22] [23]}

A team normally consists of:

• A senior meteorologist
• Two junior meteorologists
• A radio technician
• A medic
• A diesel mechanic
• A number of biologists (depending on ongoing research projects)

The team is supplied with enough food to last the whole year. People and cargo are landed either by helicopter, from a helideck-equipped supply ship, or by a fixed crane atop a cliff near the station (a place aptly called "Crane Point").

Maps

• 
  Relief map
• 
  Orthographic projection
• 
  Satellite map

Gough Island in popular Culture

Non-fiction

• Martin Holdgate describes a scientific expedition to Gough Island in 1955 in "Mountains in the Sea" (Macmillan)

See also

• South African National Antarctic Programme
• SANAE
• Marion Island
• SA Agulhas
• SA Agulhas II
• Nigel Morritt Wace

References

External links

• The South African Weather Station on Gough Island – Official website.
• Facebook Groups - Gough Island team discussions
• Gough and Inaccessible Islands - UNESCO wildlife reserve publication
• Photographs of Gough Island - Flickr publication by Chantal van Staden.

Tristan da Cunha
Tristan da Cunha Inaccessible Island Nightingale Islands Nightingale Island Middle Island Stoltenhoff Island Gough Island

British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Saint Helena	Jamestown (capital) Half Tree Hollow Saint Paul's Longwood Alarm Forest Saint Helena Airport
Ascension Island	Georgetown (chief settlement) Cat Hill Two Boats Village RAF Ascension Island
Tristan da Cunha	Edinburgh of the Seven Seas Gough Island Inaccessible Island Nightingale Islands

World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom
England	Bath Blenheim Palace Canterbury Cathedral, St. Augustine's Abbey and St. Martin's Church Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape Derwent Valley Mills Durham Castle and Cathedral Frontiers of the Roman Empire Hadrian's Wall Ironbridge Gorge Jurassic Coast Kew Royal Botanic Gardens Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City Maritime Greenwich Saltaire Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites Studley Royal Park and Fountains Abbey Tower of London Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret's Church
Scotland	Edinburgh Old Town and New Town Forth Bridge Frontiers of the Roman Empire Antonine Wall Heart of Neolithic Orkney New Lanark St. Kilda
Wales	Blaenavon Industrial Landscape Castles and Town Walls of King Edward I in Gwynedd Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
Northern Ireland	Giant's Causeway
British Overseas Territories	Gough Island Inaccessible Island Henderson Island Town of St. George and Related Fortifications