Vega Island

Vega Island (-63.83333°N, -57.41667°W) is an island in Antarctica, 17 nmi long and 6 nmi wide, which is the northernmost of the James Ross Island group and lies in the west part of Erebus and Terror Gulf. It is separated from James Ross Island by Herbert Sound and from Trinity Peninsula by Prince Gustav Channel.

Location


Vega Island is in Graham Land, to the southeast of the Trinity Peninsula, which is the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Erebus and Terror Gulf is to the east. James Ross Island is to the south, and the Ulu Peninsula of James Ross Island is to the west, separated from Vega Island by the Herbert Sound. The Prince Gustav Channel separates it from Corry Island and Eagle Island to the north. Cape Gordon is at the east end of the island.

Sailing directions
The US Defense Mapping Agency's Sailing Directions for Antarctica (1976) describes Vega Island as follows: "Vega Island, the northernmost of the Ross Group, is about 16 miles long, east and west, and 5 miles wide, It is high and precipitous, with towerlike rocks; the lower fells of eruptive rock are plateaulike in form, and brown in color. Cape Scott Keltie (Keltie Head) and Cape Gordon, the western and eastern expremities, repectively, are high projecting headlands. On the northern coast, near the middle of the island, is Cape Wellmet, a dark, conspicuous, jutting headland. Devil Island, 680 feet high, lies close to the northern shore in the vicinity of Cape Wellmet. It has steep stone sides and is ice-free. Cape Gordon is believed to be clear of dangers: the Wyatt Earp passed the high cliffs less than 100 yards distant. On the southern coast near the middle of the island a headland, known as False Island Point, extends for about 2 1/4 miles to the southward. A rock lies about 1/2 mile offshore in a position about 4 miles east-northeastward of False Island Point; some charts show this rock as lying on a shoal area extending up to 3/4 mile from a point on the shore. A shoal, with a depth of 0.9m (3 ft.) lies about 6 3/4 miles eastward of Cape Gordon."

Name
Vega Island was named by Dr. Otto Nordenskjöld, leader of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (SwedAE; 1901–04), apparently for the ship Vega used by his uncle, Baron A.E. Nordenskjold, in making the first voyage through the Northeast Passage between 1878 and 1879.

Geology
Vega Island is a volcanic island of the James Ross Island Volcanic Group. The island is a rare volcano type called a móberg, or tuya, which was formed by a three-stage eruption sequence below an ice cap. Stage one was a subglacial hyaloclastic eruption, which shattered the lava into glass, ash, and sand which has since weathered to yellow palagonite layers. The second phase was a lava eruption into a meltwater glacial lake contained in the ice cap, which resulted in volcanic breccia and basalt pillow lava. The final phase was subaerial basalt lava flows on top of the previous volcanic deposits after the lake drained or boiled away. The basalt flows from a caprock along the northwest shore, which forms an impermeable layer that results in about sixty waterfalls on warm days.

Paleontology
Vega Island is an important site for paleontology. The region is extremely rich in terrestrial and marine fossils which span the boundary of the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods, covering the point in time when dinosaurs became extinct. Fossils found on the island include hadrosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs.

Northern features
Northern features, from west to east, include:

Keltie Head
-63.78333°N, -57.68333°W. A rounded headland with vertical cliffs which rise to a small ice dome 395 m high, forming the northwest end of Vega Island. Discovered by the SwedAE under Otto Nordenskjöld, 1901-04, and named by him for Sir John Scott Keltie, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, 1892-1915.

Sandwich Bluff
-63.83333°N, -57.5°W. A flat-topped mountain, 610 m high, broken sharply at its west side by a steep dark bluff standing slightly west of center on Vega Island. Discovered by the SwedAE under Otto Nordenskjöld, 1901-04. Charted in 1945 by the FIDS, and so named because a horizontal snow-holding band of rock breaks the western cliff giving it the appearance of a sandwich when viewed from the north.

Vertigo Cliffs
-63.8°N, -57.43333°W. Spectacular, near vertical cliffs on the north coast of Vega Island. The cliffs rise to about 200 m high and extend west for 7 nmi from Cape Well-met, broken by a cirque near the west end. Named allusively by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) in 1987.

Cape Well-met
-63.78333°N, -57.31667°W. A dark, conspicuous headland near the center of the north side of Vega Island, close south of Trinity Peninsula. Cape Well-met was discovered and named by the SwedAE, 1901-04- The name commemorates the long delayed union at this point of a relief party under Doctor Johan Gunnar Andersson and the winter party under Doctor Otto Nordenskjöld after twenty months of enforced separation.

Cape Gordon
-63.85°N, -57.05°W. A jagged headland 330 m high high, forming the east end of Vega Island. Discovered by a British expedition 1839-43, under James Clark Ross, and named by him for Captain William Gordon, RN, a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty

Southern features
Southern features, from west to east, include:

Cape Lamb
-63.9°N, -57.61667°W. A cape which forms the southwest tip of Vega Island. It was discovered by the SwedAE, 1901-04, under Otto Nordenskjöld. It was resighted in 1945 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), and named after Ivan Mackenzie Lamb (1911-90), botanist on the FIDS staff at Port Lockroy, 1944; at Hope Bay, 1945; leader of biological expedition to Melchior Islands, 1964-65.

Léal Bluff
-63.88333°N, -57.58333°W. A rounded bluff rising to 485 m high, 2 nmi inland from Cape Lamb in the southwest part of Vega Island. It was named by the Argentine Antarctic Expedition after Mayor Jorge Leal, deputy leader at the Argentine Esperanza Base in 1947.

False Island Point
-63.91667°N, -57.33333°W. A headland 1 nmi long and 0.5 nmi wide, which is connected by a low, narrow, almost invisible isthmus to the south side of Vega Island. First sighted in February 1902 and charted as an island by the SwedAE under Otto Nordenskjöld. It was determined to be a part of Vega Island in 1945 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), who applied this descriptive name.

Pastorizo Bay
-63.9°N, -57.28333°W. A bay 2 nmi wide, indenting the south side of Vega Island just west of Mahogany Bluff. The name appears on an Argentine chart of 1959.

Mahogany Bluff
-63.88333°N, -57.23333°W. A rocky bluff 5 nmi southwest of Cape Gordon, forming the east side of Pastorizo Bay. So named by UK-APC because of the striking deep red-brown color of the bluff.