The derelict hangar.<center></div></div>
<center>The
destroyed British base.<center>
</div></div>
Since the early 19th century, Deception Island was a favourite
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 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 litres (130 to 200 USgal) of light
diesel.
Mount Flora is the first site in Antarctica where fossilized
plants were discovered.
See also
- List of volcanoes in Antarctica
- South Shetland Islands
- List of antarctic and sub-antarctic islands
References
External
links