History of South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands - South Sandwich Islands

South Sandwich Islands

The uninhabited South Sandwich Islands are even less hospitable than the main island of South Georgia, affected by volcanic activity as well. Since 1995 the South African Weather Bureau maintains two automatic weather stations on the islands of Zavodovski and Thule.

The southern eight islands of the Sandwich Islands Group were discovered by James Cook in 1775; the northern three by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen in 1819.

Departing from South Georgia, Captain Cook sailed to the southeast to discover Clerke Rocks and a group of islands which he named "Sandwich Land" in honour of Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty. The word "South" was later added to distinguish them from the "Sandwich Islands", now known as "Hawaii".

The archipelago of the South Sandwich Islands comprises Candlemas, Vindication, Saunders, Montagu, Bristol, Bellingshausen, Cook and Thule discovered by Cook, and the Traversay Islands (Zavodovski, Leskov and Visokoi) discovered by the Imperial Russian Navy expedition of Bellingshausen and Lazarev in the ships Vostok and Mirny in 1819.

The United Kingdom formally annexed the South Sandwich Islands through the 1908 Letters Patent, grouping them with other British-held territory in Antarctica as the Falkland Islands Dependencies.

Argentina claimed the South Sandwich Islands in 1938, and challenged British sovereignty in the Islands on several occasions. From January 25, 1955 through summer of 1956 Argentina maintained the summer station Teniente Esquivel at Ferguson Bay on the southeastern coast of Thule Island. From 1976 to 1982, Argentina maintained a naval base named Corbeta Uruguay in the lee (southern East coast) of the same island. Although the British discovered the presence of the Argentine base in 1976, protested and tried to resolve the issue by diplomatic means, no effort was made to remove them by force until after the Falklands War. The base was eventually removed on June 20, 1982 and the installations demolished in December.

On February 10, 2008 an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 on the Richter Scale had its epicentre 205 km south-southeast of Bristol Island. On June 30, 2008, an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck the region. Its epicentre was at 283 km (176 mi) east-northeast (73 degrees) of Bristol Island.