Heard Island and McDonald Islands
 |
Orthographic projection centred over the Heard Islands |
Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) are uninhabited, barren islands located in the
Southern Ocean at , about two-thirds of the way from
Madagascar to
Antarctica. They have been part of
Australia since
1947, and contain the only two active
volcanoes in Australian territory, one of which,
Mawson Peak, is the highest Australian mountain. The group's size is 372
km² in area.
Heard Island (368
km²) is bleak and mountainous, covered in glaciers and dominated by
Mawson Peak, a 2745
metre high
volcano which forms part of the
Big Ben massif. Heard Island is located at . Mawson Peak is the highest Australian mountain (527m higher than
Mount Kosciuszko), and one of only 2 active volcanoes in Australian territory.
The other active volcano in Australian territory is on McDonald Island: after being dormant for 75,000 years, it erupted in 1992 and has erupted again several times since, its most recent eruption being on
10 August 2005.
McDonald Islands, located 44 km to the west of Heard Island, are small and rocky. McDonald Islands are located at . They consist of McDonald Island (230 m high), Flat Island (55 m high) and Meyer Rock (170 m high). They total approximately 2.5 km² in area and, as with Heard Island, are surface exposures of the
Kerguelen Plateau.
There is a small group of islets and rocks about 10 km north of Heard Island, consisting of Shag Islet, Sail Rock, Morgan Island and Black Rock. They total approximately 1.1 km² in area.
Heard Island and the McDonald Islands have no ports or harbors.
The islands are a territory of
Australia administered from
Hobart by the
Australian Antarctic Division of the Australian
Department of the Environment and Heritage. They are populated by large numbers of
seal and
bird species. The islands are contained within a 65,000 square kilometre marine reserve and are primarily visited for research.
From
1947 until the 1950s there were camps of visiting scientists on Heard Island (at Atlas Cove) and in
1971 on McDonald Island (at Williams Bay).
There is no economic activity, but they have been assigned the
country code HM and
Internet top-level domain .hm.
Heard Island did not have visitors until the mid-1850s. It is probable that no human had ever seen the Island until this time. Peter Kemp, a British sealer (seal hunter), was the first person thought to have seen the island on
November 27,
1833, from the
brig Magnet during a voyage from
Kerguelen to the Antarctic and was believed to have entered the island in his
1833 chart.
Captain John Heard, an American sealer on the ship
Oriental, sighted the island on
November 25,
1853, en route from
Boston to
Melbourne. He reported the discovery one month later and had the island named after him. Coincidentally, Captain William McDonald aboard the
Samarang discovered the McDonald Islands close to Heard Island shortly afterwards on
January 4,
1854.
No landing was made on the islands until March
1855, when sealers from the
Corinthian led by Captain Erasmus Darwin Rogers went ashore, at a place called Oil Barrel Point. In the sealing period from 1855–1880, a number of
American sealers spent a year or more on the island, living in appalling conditions in dark smelly huts, also at Oil Barrel Point. At its peak the community populated 200 people. By 1880, most of the seal population had been wiped out and the sealers left the island. In all, more than 100,000 barrels of
elephant seal oil was produced during this period.
There are a number of wrecks in the vicinity of the islands.
The islands have been part of
Australia since
1947, and became a
World Heritage Site in
1997.
*
Sub-antarctic islands*
Heard Island and McDonald Islands official website*[https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/hm.html CIA World Factbook entry]
*
MODIS satellite image, taken
September 30,
2004 and showing a
von Kármán vortex street in the clouds, caused by Mawson Peak's effect on the wind
*
Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve page on Department of the Environment and Heritage website*
World Heritage Site entry*
Fan's page with further historical and geographic information and a map
*
Image gallery*
Heard Island DX Association amateur radio site
*
HMI at Infoplease
