Deception Island, Antarctic

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Elevation 576 m (1,890 ft)
Prominence 576 m (1,890 ft)
Location Antarctica
Coordinates 62°58′37″S 60°39′00″W
Type Caldera
Last eruption 1970

Deception Island is an island in South Shetland off the Antarctic Peninsula,
which has one of the safest harbors in Antarctica. A recently active volcano
in 1967 and 1969 caused serious damage to the local scientific stations. The
only current research bases are run by the Argentine Army and Spain.

Geography

The island is approximately circular with a diameter of about 12 km (7.5 mi)
A peak on the east side of the island, Mt. Pond, has an elevation of 542 m
(1,778 ft), and over half the island is covered by glaciers. The centre of
the island is a caldera formed in a huge (VEI-6) eruption which has been
flooded by the sea to form a large bay, now called Port Foster, about 9 km
(5.6 mi) long and 6 km (3.7 mi) wide. The bay has a narrow entrance, just
230 m (755 ft) wide, called Neptunes Bellows. Adding to the hazard is Ravn
Rock, which lies 2.5 m (8.2 ft) below the water in the middle of the channel
Just inside Neptunes Bellows lies the cove Whalers Bay, which is bordered
by a large black-sand beach.

Several maars line the inside rim of the caldera, with some containing
crater lakes (including one named Crater Lake). Others form bays within the
harbor, such as the 1 km (0.6 mi) wide Whalers Bay. Other features of the
island include Mount Achala, Primero de Mayo Bay, Sewing-Machine Needles,
Telefon Bay and Telefon Ridge.

History

Since the early 19th century, Deception Island was a favorite refuge area
from the storms and icebergs of Antarctica. It was first used by sealers.
Then in 1906, a Norwegian-Chilean whaling company started using Whalers Bay
as a base for a factory ship, the Gobernador Bories. Other whaling
operations followed suit, and by 1914 there were 13 factory ships based
there.

The station did not actually process whale blubber, which was done on the
ships, but instead took the carcasses and boiled them down to extract
additional whale oil, using large iron boilers, and storing the results in
iron tanks.

Whale oil prices dropped during the Great Depression, making the station
uneconomic, thus it was abandoned in 1931. Advances in factory ships made
shore stations for carcass processing unnecessary, and so it was never
reoccupied. 45 men were buried in the station's cemetery, but the cemetery
was again buried in a 1969 volcano eruption, and the only remaining signs
are the rusting boilers and tanks.

Other remains at Whalers Bay include an aircraft hangar with a bright orange
derelict airplane fuselage outside (removed in 2004), and the British
scientific station house (Biscoe House), with the middle torn out by the
mudflows in 1969.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Argentina contested control of Deception Island with
the UK with some removals of the sovereign flag and temporary occupation of
the island.

On 3 February 1944, the British established a permanent base on Deception
Island as part of Operation Tabarin, and occupied it until 5 December 1967,
when a another volcanic eruption forced a temporary withdrawal. It was used
again between 4 December 1968 and 23 February 1969, when further volcanic
activity caused it to be abandoned.

In 1955 Chile inaugurated its station Pedro Aguirre Cerda at Pendulum Cove,
to increase the Chilean presence in the sector claimed by that nation.

In 1961 Argentina's president Arturo Frondizi visited to show his country's
interest.

In 1963 the American Coast Guard icebreaker Eastwind WAGB 279 visited
Deception Island. There were two scientific stations active, a British and a
Chilean. The Chileans had an air strip and flew a DeHaviland Beaver back and
forth to Punta Arenas for resupply. There were active fumaroles spewing
noxious gases and some fumaroles had churning volcanic ash in the
depressions. The Eastwind ran aground inside the volcano which is likely the
only time an American military ship ever ran aground inside an active
volcano. The ship refloated with the rising tide.

In 1969 a violent volcanic eruption demolished the Chilean stations Pedro
Aguirre Cerda and Gutierrez Vargas.

The volcano has mostly destroyed other attempts to maintain permanent
facilities, and as of 2000, there were only two scientific stations still in
use, both summer-only, the Spain has Gabriel de Castilla, and Argentina has
its "Decepción Station".

Micro climates

Deception Island exhibits some wildly varying microclimates. Some water
temperatures reach 70 °C (158 °F). Near volcanic areas, the air can be as
hot as 40 °C (104 °F).

Ecology

Deception Island has become a popular tourist stop in Antarctica because of
its several colonies of chinstrap penguins, as well as the novel possibility
of making a warm bath by digging into the sands of the beach. Baily Head on
the west side of the island holds one of the world's largest chinstrap
rookeries.

After the Norwegian Coastal Cruise Liner M/S Nordkapp ran aground off the
coast of Deception Island on January 30, 2007, fuel from the ship washed
into a bay. Ecological damage has not yet been determined. On February 4,
2007 the Spanish Gabriel de Castilla research station on Deception Island
reported that water and sand tests were clean and that they had not found
signs of the oil, estimated as 500 to 750 liters (130 to 200 US gal) of
light diesel.

Mount Flora is the first site in Antarctica where fossilized plants were discovered.