Page 447 - (DK) Ocean - The Definitive Visual Guide

G H I J K L 445

40˚W 30˚W 50˚S 20˚W

1,608m South
(5,276ft)
Northwest
Georgia Rise 1
Georgia Rise
R i d g e 50˚S
110m Islas
(361ft) Orcadas Rise
1,748m
(5,735ft)
South Georgia
Fracture Zone ATLANTIC
OCEAN
8,325m
4,314m 1,077m (27,314ft)
(14,154ft) (3,534ft) 2
3,099m
East Scotia Ridge
East Scotia (10,168ft)
Scotia Sea Basin South Sandwich Trench

1,139m
(3,737ft) South Sandwich Islands
Guevara
Seamounts 3,140m
5,576m (10,302ft) 5,404m 3
(18,295ft) (17,731ft)
210m
B r u c e R i d g e
(689ft)
South Orkney Islands
1,780m
Orkney Deep (5,840ft)
187m
7,152m
(614ft) (23,466ft) 60˚S
Endurance Ridge Ligeti Ridge South Sandwich SOUTH SANDWICH VOLCANO 4
Mount Belinda, on Montague Island, entered
Fracture Zone
SOUTHERN OCEAN an eruptive phase in 2001, and was still active
when this satellite image was taken in 2005.
40˚W 30˚W 20˚W 10˚W

G H I J K L

South Sandwich Trench lies a little in the 20th century seven whaling
ATLANTIC OCEAN J2 ATLANTIC OCEAN F3
farther to the east. Both features are stations were established on the more
South Sandwich caused by tectonic processes occurring South Georgia Ridge sheltered northern shore. The last of
where the Scotia and South Atlantic these closed in 1965. North of the
Trench plates meet. The Scotia Plate is split and LENGTH 1,600 miles (2,500 km) South Georgia Ridge lies the Falkland
spreading at the East Scotia Ridge, HEIGHT ABOVE SEA FLOOR 9,800 ft (3,000 m) Plateau, an area of thickened ocean
LENGTH 600 miles (965 km)
forming a new plate at its eastern RATE OF RELATIVE MOTION ¼ in (0.7 cm) per year crust of moderate depth, and the
MAXIMUM DEPTH 27,300 ft (8,325 m) end—the South Sandwich microplate. broad continental shelf off the east
RATE OF CLOSURE 2¾ in (7 cm) per year This plate is geologically young, at The South Georgia Ridge marks the coast of South America—the
about eight million years old, and northern edge of the Scotia Plate, a Patagonian Shelf. The Falkland Islands
Although discovered by James Cook in buoyant. Moving eastward at about boundary that continues east through are a continental fragment left over
1775, the South Sandwich Islands were 2¾ in (7 cm) per year, it is converging the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. This from the breakup of Gondwana (see
not visited until 1818, when with the South Atlantic Plate, resulting is a transform boundary (see p.50) p.44) and the subsequent opening of
seal hunters landed. They were never in the older South Atlantic Plate sinking with the South Atlantic Plate to the the south Atlantic.
permanently settled and remain beneath the South Sandwich Plate at north. There is a similar transform
uninhabited. With volcanic peaks rising a subduction zone. This zone is marked boundary marked by the South Scotia ABANDONED WHALING STATION
up to 3,300 ft (1,000 m) above sea level, by the South Sandwich Trench and the Ridge, with the Antarctic Plate to the Old, rusting whaling ships lie in the harbor
the islands are mostly composed of volcanic island arc of the South south. Fragments of continental at Grytviken, a whaling station from 1904–65,
basaltic lava and Sandwich Islands crust, such as Burdwood Bank on South Georgia.
covered by glaciers. (or the Scotia Arc). and South Georgia, seem to
North of have been left behind as
the islands is the South America moved west.
Protector Shoal— SEA ICE The island of South ATLAS OF THE OCEANS
an undersea volcano Georgia was named
Sea ice clings
that rises to within to the shore of by James Cook in
100 ft (30 m) of the Bellinghausen Island, 1775, but may have
surface. The South of the South Shetland been sighted as
Sandwich Islands group, named after the early as 1675.
mark the eastern Russian explorer who It was a base for
boundary of the discovered it in the seal hunters in the
Scotia Sea, and the 19th century. 19th century, and