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![]() Location of Laurie Island in the South Orkney Islands | |
Geography | |
---|---|
Location | Antarctica |
Coordinates | 60°43′43″S44°31′05″W / 60.72861°S 44.51806°W |
Archipelago | South Orkney Islands |
Total islands | 1 |
Area | 86 km2 (33 sq mi) |
Administration | |
Argentina/UK (disputed) | |
Administered under the Antarctic Treaty System | |
Largest settlement | Orcadas Base (pop. 28) |
Demographics | |
Population | 28 (2014) |
Pop. density | 0.32/km2 (0.83/sq mi) |
Laurie Island is the second largest of the South Orkney Islands. The island is claimed by both Argentina as part of Argentine Antarctica, and the United Kingdom as part of the British Antarctic Territory. However, under the Antarctic Treaty System all sovereignty claims are frozen, as the island lies south of the parallel 60°. Buchanan Point at the north-eastern end of the island, with Cape Whitson on its south coast, are Important Bird Areas.
Laurie Island was discovered by Captains George Powell and Nathaniel Palmer in the course of their 1821 expedition to the South Atlantic. Richard Holmes Laurie used Powell's observations to create a map of the island, and subsequently, the island was named after him. [1] [2] Two years later, James Weddell mapped the island for the second time, though his charts turned out to be much less accurate than Powell's. Weddell attempted to rename the island to Melville Island for the 2nd Viscount Melville, [3] but the name failed to stick when the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition opted for Laurie Island instead. [4]
William S. Bruce conducted the first comprehensive scientific study of Laurie Island during the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. Aboard his ship, the Scotia, Bruce landed on Laurie Island in March 1903. The first settlement, Omond House, was built by the crew out of stone, and would be used both as a shelter and as a post from which to study the weather. [5]
In January 1904, Bruce offered control of Omond House to the government of Argentina; the house would later be renamed Orcadas Base. The British Government had previously refused to carry on the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition's scientific studies, as they considered Laurie Island itself worthless. The expedition lacked the necessary mandate to claim the island for either Britain or Scotland. [6] Nevertheless, Bruce's offer was accepted, and the Argentines would continue operating the meteorological station at Omond House, sending a ship each year to replenish supplies. Laurie Island would prove politically valuable to Argentina. To justify its claim to a sector of Antarctica, Argentina argued that its permanent settlement on the island demonstrated sovereignty, a key to securing a claim over a mostly desolate area. [7] [8] Robert Rudmose-Brown, who participated in Bruce's expedition, expressed a different view. He argued in a 1947 article that no country had the capability to govern a region as vast as Antarctica and thus no country had the standing to claim Antarctica as its own. [6]
By 1908, Britain had come to regret its previous assessment of Laurie Island. In the Letters Patent of 1908, Britain declared a claim over the South Orkney Islands and incorporated Laurie Island into the newly created Falkland Islands Dependencies, meaning that Laurie Island would be subject to the British government in the Falklands. [6] [9] Argentina did not lodge a formal protest against the Letters Patent and Britain interpreted this as an acceptance of the British claim. The British position was that Bruce had given the meteorological station, but not the island itself to Argentina. [10] The territorial dispute escalated in 1925 with the construction of an Argentinian wireless telegraph station on the island. As Argentina viewed Laurie Island as its own, the Argentine government did not request permission from the British government to operate the station, and for the first time, Argentina made an outright declaration that it had sovereignty over the island. [6] Britain saw the possibility of strategically relinquishing the South Orkney Islands to Argentina in order to strengthen diplomatic relations or to secure the Falkland Islands themselves. The Argentine occupation of Laurie Island posed a problem for this strategy, as it weakened Britain's claim to the South Orkneys. Before a British cession of the South Orkney Islands could exert any leverage, Britain would have to solidify its own claim over the territory. [7]
Laurie Island is also the site of the first post office built in the Antarctic. After William S. Bruce turned over the meteorological station to the Argentinian government, Argentina initiated postal services on 20 February 1904. The post office went inactive shortly after, until 1942, when Argentina restarted postal services, in part to assert its claim to the South Orkney Islands. [11] [12] [13] In response, the British government refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the post office. When the auxiliary cruiser HMS Carnarvon Castle visited Laurie Island on 9 February 1943, [14] the Secretary of State for the Colonies cautioned the crew against sending letters while on shore, as doing so would undercut the British position that Argentina had no authority to establish a post office on Laurie Island in the first place. [15]
Sedimentary rocks, most notably the Greywacke-Shale Formation, constitute the bulk of Laurie Island. [16] [17] Dr. John H. Harvey Pirie, a geologist aboard the Scotia described the rock as "a fine-grained greywacke of a blue-grey or greenish-grey colour." The greywacke contained grains of many different minerals, quartz being the most numerous, along with plagioclase feldspar, titanite, zircon, biotite, chlorite, and veins of calcite. Pirie also found shale formations distributed across the island, usually fractured and twisted. Graptolite Island, off of Laurie Island's south-east coast, particularly exhibited these shale formations. [18] It was on Graptolite Island that Pirie collected three fossils which he later mistook to be the remains of ancient animal organisms known as graptolites, hence the name of the island. Gertrude Elles believed that Pleurograptus was the specific species to which the graptolites belonged. Later analysis showed that the fossils on Graptolite Island were merely the remains of ancient plants. [19] [20]
The dating of the Greywacke-Shale Formation has proved to be a source of scientific controversy. Based on Pirie's incorrect analysis of the "graptolites", geologist I. Rafael Cordini dated the rock's genesis to the Ordovician Period. However, this explanation proved to be untenable, as Laurie Island would have been far older than had been thought possible. The reassessment of Pirie's fossils as plant remains dates the formation of the Greywacke to the Carboniferous Period, many millions of years later than originally thought. [17] [20]
The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.
The British Antarctic Territory (BAT) is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom as one of its 14 British Overseas Territories, of which it is by far the largest by area. It comprises the region south of 60°S latitude and between longitudes 20°W and 80°W, forming a wedge shape that extends to the South Pole, overlapped by the Antarctic claims of Argentina and Chile. The claim to the region has been suspended since the Antarctic Treaty came into force in 1961.
The South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean, about 604 km (375 mi) north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and 844 km (524 mi) south-west of South Georgia Island. They have a total area of about 620 km2 (240 sq mi). The islands are claimed both by Britain, and by Argentina as part of Argentine Antarctica. Under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, sovereignty claims are held in abeyance.
William Speirs Bruce was a British naturalist, polar scientist and oceanographer who organized and led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea. Among other achievements, the expedition established the first permanent weather station in Antarctica. Bruce later founded the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory in Edinburgh, but his plans for a transcontinental Antarctic march via the South Pole were abandoned because of lack of public and financial support.
Operation Tabarin was the code name for a secret British expedition to the Antarctic during World War Two, operational 1943–46. Conducted by the Admiralty on behalf of the Colonial Office, its primary objective was to strengthen British claims to sovereignty of the British territory of the Falkland Islands Dependencies (FID), to which Argentina and Chile had made counter claims since the outbreak of war. This was done by establishing permanently occupied bases, carrying out administrative activities such as postal services and undertaking scientific research. The meteorological observations made aided Allied shipping in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Base Orcadas is an Argentine scientific station in Antarctica, and the oldest of the stations in Antarctica still in operation. It is located on Laurie Island, one of the South Orkney Islands, at 4 meters (13 ft) above sea level and 170 meters (558 ft) from the coastline. Established by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition in 1903 and transferred to the Argentine government in 1904, the base has been permanently populated since, being one of six Argentine permanent bases in Argentina's claim to Antarctica, and the first permanently inhabited base in Antarctica.
Argentine Antarctica is an area on Antarctica claimed by Argentina as part of its national territory. It consists of the Antarctic Peninsula and a triangular section extending to the South Pole, delimited by the 25° West and 74° West meridians and the 60° South parallel. This region overlaps with British and Chilean claims in Antarctica. None of these claims have widespread international recognition.
Multiple governments have set up permanent research stations in Antarctica and these bases are widely distributed. Unlike the drifting ice stations set up in the Arctic, the research stations of the Antarctic are constructed either on rocks or on ice that are fixed in place.
The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE), 1902–1904, was organised and led by William Speirs Bruce, a natural scientist and former medical student from the University of Edinburgh. Although overshadowed in terms of prestige by Robert Falcon Scott's concurrent Discovery Expedition, the SNAE completed a full programme of exploration and scientific work. Its achievements included the establishment of a staffed meteorological station, the first in Antarctic territory, and the discovery of new land to the east of the Weddell Sea. Its large collection of biological and geological specimens, together with those from Bruce's earlier travels, led to the establishment of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory in 1906.
James William Slessor Marr was a Scottish marine biologist and polar explorer. He was leader of the World War 2 British Antarctic Expedition Operation Tabarin during its first year, 1943–1945.
The British Antarctic Territory (BAT) is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom as one of its 14 British Overseas Territories. It comprises the region south of 60°S latitude and between longitudes 20°W and 80°W, forming a wedge shape that extends to the South Pole. The Territory was formed on 3 March 1962, although the UK's claim to this portion of the Antarctic dates back to Letters Patent of 1908 and 1917. The area now covered by the Territory includes three regions which, before 1962, were administered by the British as separate dependencies of the Falkland Islands: Graham Land, the South Orkney Islands, and the South Shetland Islands.
Seven sovereign states – Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom – have made eight territorial claims in Antarctica. These countries have tended to place their Antarctic scientific observation and study facilities within their respective claimed territories; however, a number of such facilities are located outside of the area claimed by their respective countries of operation, and countries without claims such as China, India, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa (SANAE), Ukraine, and the United States have constructed research facilities within the areas claimed by other countries. There are overlaps among the territories claimed by Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom.
Pirie Peninsula is a narrow peninsula extending 6 km (3.7 mi) northward from the center of Laurie Island, in the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica. The peninsula was surveyed in 1903 by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition under Bruce, who named it for Dr Harvey Pirie, surgeon and geologist of the expedition.
Cape Mabel is a headland forming the northern tip of Pirie Peninsula on the north coast of Laurie Island, in the South Orkney Islands, Antarctica.
Ferrier Peninsula is a narrow peninsula, 2.4 km (1.5 mi) long, forming the eastern end of Laurie Island in the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica. It was roughly charted in 1823 by a British sealing expedition under James Weddell. It was surveyed in 1903 by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition under William Speirs Bruce, who named it for his secretary J.G. Ferrier, who was also manager in Scotland of the expedition.
Graptolite Island is an island 0.8 km (0.50 mi) long in the north-east part of Fitchie Bay, lying off the south-east portion of Laurie Island in the South Orkney Islands of Antarctica. James Weddell's chart published in 1825 shows two islands in essentially this position. Existence of a single island was determined in 1903 by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition under William Speirs Bruce, who so named it because what were thought to be graptolite fossils were found there. Later analysis showed that the fossils on Graptolite Island were merely the remains of ancient plants.
Dr James Hunter Harvey Pirie FRSE FRCPE was a 20th-century British medical doctor, philatelist, orchid-grower and bacteriologist. Pirie named the bacterial genus Listeria in honor of Joseph Lister and the Pirie Peninsula is named after him. Cape Mabel was named after his wife. In authorship he is known as J. H. H. Pirie.
The first evidence for whaling in Scotland is from Bronze Age settlements where whalebones were used for constructing and decorating dwelling places. Commercial whaling started in the Middle Ages, and by the 1750s most Scottish ports were whaling, with the Edinburgh Whale-Fishing Company being founded in 1749. The last company still engaged in whaling was Christian Salvesen, which exited the industry in 1963.
Scotia was a barque that was built in 1872 as the Norwegian whaler Hekla. She was purchased in 1902 by William Speirs Bruce and refitted as a research vessel for use by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. After the expedition, she served as a sealer, patrol vessel and collier. She was destroyed by fire in January 1916.
Robert Cockburn Mossman FRSE (1870-1940) was a British meteorologist and polar explorer who served on the Scottish Antarctic Expedition of 1903/4. He lived at 10 Blackett Place, Edinburgh. See 1881 census.