The French Southern and Antarctic Lands is an overseas territory of France. It consists of:
- Adélie Land, the French claim on the continent of Antarctica.
- Crozet Islands, a group in the southern Indian Ocean, south of Madagascar.
- Kerguelen Islands, a group of volcanic islands in the southern Indian Ocean, southeast of Africa.
- Saint Paul and Amsterdam Islands, a group to the north of the Kerguelen Islands.
- Scattered Islands, a dispersed group of islands around the coast of Madagascar.
The Kerguelen Islands, also known as the Desolation Islands, are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a large igneous province mostly submerged in the southern Indian Ocean. They are among the most isolated places on Earth, located more than 3,300 kilometres from Madagascar. The islands, along with Adélie Land, the Crozet Islands, Amsterdam and Saint Paul islands, and France's Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean, are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and are administered as a separate district.
The Crozet Islands are a sub-Antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five administrative districts of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.
Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne was a French privateer, East India captain and explorer. The expedition he led to find the hypothetical Terra Australis in 1771 made important geographic discoveries in the south Indian Ocean and anthropological discoveries in Tasmania and New Zealand. In New Zealand they spent longer living on shore than any previous European expedition. Half way through the expedition's stay Marion died during a military assault by the Ngare Raumati iwi.
Floréal is the lead ship of the Floréal-class frigates of the French Navy. Floréal is the first French vessel named after the eighth month of the Republican Calendar. The ship was constructed by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire, France, in 1992 and entered service in 1993. Floréal is stationed at Réunion in the Indian Ocean for patrol duties.
Nivôse is a Floréal-class frigate of the French Navy. The frigate is the third ship of the class and the fourth French vessel named after the fourth month of the Republican Calendar. Nivôse was constructed by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire, France, in 1991 and entered service in 1992. The frigate is stationed at Réunion in the Indian Ocean for patrol duties.
NOAAS Ronald H. Brown is a Thomas G. Thompson-class blue-water research vessel of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, she is NOAA's only Global-Class research ship.
RV Knorr was a research vessel formerly owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the U.S. research community in coordination with and as a part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet. On March 14, 2016, Knorr was officially transferred to the Mexican Navy and renamed Rio Tecolutla. She was replaced at Woods Hole by the RV Neil Armstrong. Knorr is best known as the ship that supported researchers as they discovered the wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1985. R/V Knorr (AGOR-15) has traveled more than a million miles—the rough equivalent of two round trips to the Moon or forty trips around the Earth. Her sister ship is the RV Melville.
Alfred-Faure or Port Alfred is a permanent French scientific station on Île de la Possession of the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago in the South Indian Ocean.
USNS Indomitable (T-AGOS-7) was a United States Navy Stalwart-class ocean surveillance ship in service from 1985 to 2002. From 2003 until 18 June 2014, she was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the oceanographic research ship NOAAS McArthur II. As of 2018 it serves as a mother ship now named the Deep Submersible Support Vessel (DSSV) Pressure Drop for the crewed deep-ocean research submersible DSV Limiting Factor.
Mont Ross is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in the Kerguelen Islands at 1,850 metres (6,070 ft). It is located in the Gallieni Massif, at the end of the Gallieni Peninsula, east of Baie Larose on the main island of Grande Terre. The volcano is composed primarily of trachybasalt and was active during the late Pleistocene. Eruptives have been dated between 2 million years to 100,000 years old.
RV Callista is a research vessel belonging to the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science, based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Callista is a 19.75-metre (64.8 ft) catamaran designed and equipped for a range of coastal and shelf research.
Deep-sea exploration is the investigation of physical, chemical, and biological conditions on the ocean waters and sea bed beyond the continental shelf, for scientific or commercial purposes. Deep-sea exploration is an aspect of underwater exploration and is considered a relatively recent human activity compared to the other areas of geophysical research, as the deeper depths of the sea have been investigated only during comparatively recent years. The ocean depths still remain a largely unexplored part of the Earth, and form a relatively undiscovered domain.
ORV Sagar Nidhi is an ice-strengthened multidisciplinary vessel operated by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, India. It was constructed at Fincantieri, Italy. The 104-metre-long vessel has fully automatic diesel-electric propulsion equipped with dynamic positioning system, azimuth thrusters, and a winch to hoist 60 tonnes from a depth of 6,000 metres.
Titan was a floating crane that operated in Sydney Harbour from 1919 until 1991. She was fabricated in Carlisle in the United Kingdom and then sent to Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney for assembly before entering service with the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).
NOAAS Reuben Lasker is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fishery research vessel. The ship's namesake, Reuben Lasker, was a fisheries biologist who served with the Southwest Fisheries Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, and taught at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Île de la Possession, or Possession Island, formerly Île de la Prise de Possession, is part of the Subantarctic Crozet Archipelago. Administratively, it is part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. It is an important nesting site for seabirds.
MV Plancius, formerly HNLMS Tydeman (A906), is a renovated oceanographic research vessel of the Royal Netherlands Navy now employed as a polar expedition cruise vessel by owner and operator Oceanwide Expeditions. She was commissioned into the Royal Netherlands Navy on 10 November 1976, and served until 2004, before being renovated for commercial use. The vessel was used for both military and civilian research and had a fracture zone named after it.
NOAAS David Starr Jordan (R444)) was an American fisheries research vessel in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1970 to 2010. She previously was in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries fleet from 1966 to 1970 as US FWS David Starr Jordan.
NOAAS Pisces is an American fisheries and oceanographic research vessel in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet since 2009.
