James Ross Island is a large island off the southeast side and near the northeastern extremity of the
Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by
Prince Gustav Channel. Rising to 1,630 metres (5,350 ft), it is irregularly shaped and extends 64 km (40 miles) in a north–south direction. It was charted in October 1903 by the
Swedish Antarctic Expedition under
Otto Nordenskiöld, who named it for Sir
James Clark Ross, the leader of a British expedition to this area in 1842 that discovered and roughly charted a number of points along the eastern side of the island. The style, "James" Ross Island is used to avoid confusion with the more widely known
Ross Island in
McMurdo Sound.[1]
It is one of several islands around the peninsula known as
Graham Land, which is closer to South America than any other part of that continent.[2]
The island was connected to the Antarctic mainland by an
ice shelf until 1995, when the ice shelf collapsed, making the Prince Gustav Channel passable for the first time.[3]
The first dinosaur discovered in Antarctica was Antarctopelta oliveroi, a medium-sized
ankylosaur found on James Ross Island by
Argentiniangeologists Eduardo Olivero and Roberto Scasso in 1986. The dinosaur was recovered from the
Campanian stage of the
Upper CretaceousSanta Marta Formation, about 2 km (1.2 mi) south of Santa Marta Cove on the north part of the island. The ankylosaur was not formally named until 2006.[4]
In 2015, an iguanodontid found in 2002 by
Fernando Novas[7] was named Morrosaurus antarcticus by Sebastian Rozadilla, Federico Lisandro Agnolin, Fernando Emilio Novas, Alexis Rolando Aranciaga Mauro, Matthew J. Motta, Juan Manuel Lirio Marcelo and Pablo Isasi. The genus name refers to the site of El Morro on James Ross Island, where the remains of the species were found. The specific name refers to Antarctica.[8]
Named features
James Ross Island features several features named by various surveying and exploration groups.
Brandy Bay (63°50′S57°59′W / 63.833°S 57.983°W / -63.833; -57.983), a bay 2 nautical miles (4 km) wide on the northwest coast of James Ross Island, entered west of
Bibby Point. It was probably first seen by
Otto Nordenskiöld in 1903, and was surveyed by the
Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) in 1945. During a subsequent visit to this bay by a FIDS party in 1952, there was a discussion as to whether medicinal
brandy should be used as treatment for a dog bite. The name arose naturally from this incident.[9] On the southwest point of Brandy Bay,
San Carlos Point is named after a hut, Refugio San Carlos, established in 1959 by Argentine army personnel.[10]
^Rubin, Jeff (2008). Antarctica, p. 276. Lonely Planet.
^Salgado, L.; Gasparini, Z. (2006). "Reappraisal of an ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of James Ross Island (Antarctica)". Geodiversitas. 28 (1): 119–135.
^Coria, R. A.; Moly, J. J.; Reguero, M.; Santillana, S.; Marenssi, S. (2013). "A new ornithopod (Dinosauria; Ornithischia) from Antarctica". Cretaceous Research. 41: 186–193.
doi:
10.1016/j.cretres.2012.12.004.
hdl:11336/76749.
^Novas, F.E., A.V. Cambiaso, J. Lirio, & H. Núñez, 2002, "Paleobiogeografía de los dinosaurios cretácicos polares de Gondwana", Ameghiniana (Resúmenes) 39(4): 15R
^Rozadilla, Sebastián; Agnolin, Federico L.; Novas, Fernando E.; Aranciaga Rolando, Alexis M.; Motta, Matías J.; Lirio, Juan M.; Isasi, Marcelo P. (2016). "A new ornithopod (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Antarctica and its palaeobiogeographical implications". Cretaceous Research. 57: 311–324.
doi:
10.1016/j.cretres.2015.09.009.