Crozet Islands

From Wikinfo

The Crozet Islands (French �les Crozet) are a sub-antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean, part of the French Southern Territories.

File:Map of Crozet Islands.jpg

Map of the Crozet Islands

Geography, geology, and climate

The Crozet Islands are located between latitudes 45°95' and 46°50' S and longitudes 50°33' and 52°58' E in the southern Indian Ocean. The archipelago is divided in two groups. The westernmost is called L'Occidental and comprises �le des Cochons ("Pigs' Island") and the smaller �le des Pingouins ("Penguin Island") and the �lots des Ap�tres. The two other larger islands, �le de la Possession and �le de l'Est form the other group, called L'Oriental, about 60 nm to the east.

�le de la Possession is the largest of these islands with some 150 km², �le de l'Est cover 130 km², and �le des Cochons is some 67 km² large. The islands reach elevations between 800 and 1000 m above sea level, the highest point being Pic Marion-Dufresne on �le de l'Est at 1090 m. They are rocky islands: even the smaller �le des Pingouins (3 km²) rises to 340 m, and the highest point of the �lots des Ap�tres, a group of 14 very small isles, the lagerst covering a bare 1.2 km² is at 289 m.

Analysis of magnetic anomalies on the sea floor indicates that the Crozet Plateau, of which the islands form the highest points, formed some 50 million years ago. The islands are of volcanic origin, and basalt dating to at least 8.8 million years back has been found.

The Crozet Islands are generally not glaciated. Precipitation is with over 2500 mm per year very abundant. It rains on the average on 300 days a year, and winds exceeding 100 km/h occur on 100 days. The temperatures may rise to 18°C in summer and rarely go below 5°C even in winter.

History

The Crozet Islands were first discovered by the expedition of Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, a French explorer, who landed on January 24, 1772 on �le de la Possession, claiming the archipelago for France. He named the islands after his second-in-command Jules Crozet. (He had already named Marion Island after himself...)

In the early 19th century, the islands were often visited by sealers, to the extent that the seals had been nearly exterminated by 1835. Subsequently, whaling was the main activity around the islands, especially by the whalers from Massachussetts.

Shipwrecks occurred frequently at the Crozet Islands. The British sealer Princess of Wales sank in 1821, and the survivors spent two years on the islands. In 1887, the French Tamaris was wrecked and her crew stranded on �le des Cochons. They tied a note to the leg of a Giant Petrel, which was found seven months later in Fremantle. Alas, the crew was never recovered. Because shipwrecks around the islands were so common, the Royal Navy for some time sent a ship every few years there to look for stranded survivors.

France originally administered the islands as a dependency of Madagascar, but they became part of the French Southern Territories in 1955. In 1961, a first reserach station was set up, but it wasn't until 1963 that the permanent station Albert Faure opened at Port Albert on �le de la Possession (both named after the first leader of the station). The station is staffed by 18 to 30 people (depending on the season) and does meteorological, biological, and geological research and maintains a seismograph.

Biology

The Crozet Islands are home to four species of penguins. Most abundant are the Macaroni Penguin, of which some 2 million pairs breeed on the islands, and the King Penguin. The Eastern Rockhopper Penguin also can be found, and there is a small colony of Gentoo Penguins, too.

Other animals living on the Crozet Islands include seals, Southern Elephant Seals, petrels, and albatross, including the Shy Albatross.

The Crozet Islands are a nature reserve since 1938. Introduction of foreign species (mice, rats, subsequently cats as a pest control) has caused severe damage to the original ecosystem. The pigs once introduced on �le des Cochon and the goats brought to �le de la Possession—both as a food resource—have been exterminated.

An on-going concern is the overfishing of the Patagonian Toothfish and the monitoring of the Albatross population. The waters of the Crozet Islands are patrolled not only by the French but also by Greenpeace.