Preparation for the upcoming field season is well underway with BAS operations and logistics coordinating visits to a wide variety of sites. This is the first of a series of place names articles where we’ll be highlighting some of the interesting places staff will be researching.
The first fieldwork site is Zavodovski Island, which rises to an active volcanic cone. The northern-most of the South Sandwich Islands, it was first charted by the Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE) on 4th January 1820, and named after Kapitan-Leytenant Ivan Ivanovich Zavodovskiy, Second-in-Command of the expedition ship Vostok and member of the party which landed on the island on 5th January 1820. Since then, it has been charted by various Antarctic expeditions including by HMS Protector in 1962 and 1964. They applied a group of descriptive names the island, including Stench Point, Noxious Bluff and Asphyxia Plain, all in reference to the smell of volcanic fumes emitted from the crater!
The island is soon to be visited again by a team from BAS. This Darwin Plus funded project aims to census penguin colonies and survey terrestrial biodiversity using drones, manned aerial and satellite images. They will also track penguin movements at sea throughout their annual cycle. This will involve a 3-week tented expedition to the island supported by a charter yacht and an overflight by the RAF A400M transport plane. Results will inform the South Sandwich Island Terrestrial Protected Area action plan and the revision of the SGSSI Marine Protected Area management plan.
