Geography
Livingston is situated in the Southern Ocean 110 km (68 mi) to the northwest of Cape Roquemaurel on the Antarctic mainland, 809.4 km (503 mi) to the south-southeast of Cape Horn in South America, 820 km (510 mi) to the southeast of the Diego Ramirez Islands (the southernmost land of South America), 1,000 km (621 mi) due south of the Falkland Islands, 1,600 km (994 mi) to the southwest of South Georgia Island, and 3,000 km (1,864 mi) from the South Pole.
The island is part of the South Shetlands archipelago, an islands chain extending over 500 km (311 mi) in east-northeast to west-southwest direction, and separated from the nearby Antarctic Peninsula by Bransfield Strait, and from South America by the Drake Passage. The South Shetlands cover a total land area of 3,687 km2 (1,424 sq mi) comprising (from east to west) Clarence Island, Elephant Island, King George Island, Nelson Island, Robert Island, Greenwich Island, Livingston Island, Deception Island, Snow Island, Low Island and Smith Island, as well as numerous smaller islets and rocks.
Livingston is separated from the neighbouring Greenwich Island to the east and Snow Island to the west-southwest respectively by McFarlane Strait and by Morton Strait. Deception Island, located barely 18 km (11.2 mi) southwest of Livingston’s Barnard Point in the Bransfield Strait, is a volcano whose caldera forms the sheltered harbour of Port Foster entered by a single narrow passage known as Neptune's Bellows.
The island extends 73 km (45 mi) from Start Point in the west to Renier Point in the east, its width varying from 5 km (3.1 mi) at the neck between South Bay and Hero Bay to 34 km (21 mi) between Botev Point to the south and Williams Point to the north, with surface area of 798 square kilometres (308 sq mi). There are many islets and rocks in the surrounding waters, particularly off the north coast. More sizable among the adjacent smaller islands are Rugged Island off Byers Peninsula (which also contain a small freshwater lake named Basalt Lake), Half Moon Island in Moon Bay, Desolation Island in Hero Bay and Zed Islands to the north.
Ice cliffs, often withdrawing during recent decades to uncover new coves, beaches and points, form most of the coastline. Except for isolated patches, the land surface is covered by an ice cap, highly crevassed in certain segments, with ice domes and plateaus in the central and western areas, and a number of valley glaciers formed by the more mountainous relief of eastern Livingston. Typical of the island’s glaciology are the conspicuous ash layers originating from volcanic activity on the neighbouring Deception Island.
Apart from the extensive Byers Peninsula (61 km2/24 sq mi) forming the west extremity of Livingston, the ice-free part of the island includes certain coastal areas at Cape Shirreff, Siddons Point, Hannah Point, Williams Point, Hurd Peninsula and Rozhen Peninsula, as well as slopes in the mountain ranges, and ridges and heights in eastern Livingston that are too precipitous to keep snow. The principal mountain formations include Tangra Mountains (30 km/19 mi long, with Mt Friesland rising to 1,700 m/5,577 ft), Bowles Ridge (6.5 km/4 mi, elevation 822 m/2,697 ft), Vidin Heights (8 km/5 mi, 604 m/1,982 ft), Burdick Ridge (773 m/2,536 ft), Melnik Ridge (696 m/2,283 ft) and Pliska Ridge (667 m/2,188 ft) in the eastern part of the island, and Oryahovo Heights (6 km/4 mi, 340 m/1,115 ft), and Dospey Heights (6 km/4 mi, 265 m/869 ft).
The coastline of the island is irregular, with the more significant indentations of South Bay, False Bay, Moon Bay, Hero, Barclay, New Plymouth, Osogovo and Walker, and the peninsulas of Hurd (extension 10 km/6.2 mi), Rozhen (9 km/5.6 mi), Burgas (10.5 km/6.5 mi), Varna (12 km/7.5 mi), Ioannes Paulus II (12.8 km/8.0 mi) and Byers (15 km/9.3 mi).
The local variety of the Antarctic Peninsula weather is particularly changeable, windy, humid and sunless. Says Australian mountaineer Damien Gildea: ‘Livingston got just about the worst weather in the world’. Whiteouts are common, and blizzards can occur at any time of the year. Temperatures are rather constant, rarely exceeding 3 °C (37.4 °F) in summer or falling below −11 °C (12.2 °F) in winter, with wind chill temperatures up to 5 °C (9 °F) to 10 °C (18 °F) lower.
Below are the average temperatures of the warmest month, coldest month, yearly average, and the average annual rainfall of Livingston Island.
| Place | Average: Warmest month °C/°F |
Average: Coldest month °C/°F |
Annual average °C/°F |
Average annual rainfall mostly in snow mm/in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Livingston Island (coastal areas) | 1.3 °C/34.3 °F | −7 °C/19.4 °F | −2.7 °C/27.1 °F | 800 mm/31.5 in |
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