Desventuradas islands

The islands Desventuradas (also called the Unhappy islands or islands of Misfortune ) are small island S of the Pacific Ocean, roughly located at 850 km of the coasts of the Chile to which they belong. The two principal islands are San Felix and San Ambrosio . They are attached administratively to the Région of Valparaíso.

Because of their insulation and difficulties of access, there is no permanent inhabitant in Desventuradas, only a detachment of the Chilean marine stations on the island San Felix.

History

The islands San Felix and San Ambrosio are discovered the November 8th 1574 by the Spanish navigator Juan Fernández. It is during the same voyage that he discovers, sixteen days later, the archipelago which bears its name.

The discovery of the islands San Felix and San Ambrosio is sometimes allotted wrongly to Fernand of Magellan who in 1521 meets two new islands that it also names Desventuradas but which is very distant geographically from San Felix and San Ambrosio: the islands San Pablo (, discovered the January 24th 1521) and of los Tiburones (, discovered the February 2nd 1521) called thus because of their inhospitable character.

Geography

The Desventuradas islands of an entire surface of 10,3 km ² consist of two principal islands to the broken Topographie:

the island San Ambrosio (, 479 m) which rises with the top of the sea by abrupt cliffs on almost all its coast. It measures 4 km length for 850 m broad and is made up mainly of basaltic rocks .
the island San Felix (, 193 m) is slightly smaller and its relief is characterized by two small peaks, rising with 193 m and stripped by the wind.

and several rocks:

the small island Gonzalez (; 173 m in height),
small a small island which is in the south-east of the island San Felix
the Roc Cathedral ( Roca Catedral ) (; 53 m in height) which is located at the north of the island San Felix.

Ecology

The islands are of origins volcanic and them Flore and them fauna is of great scientific interest, although they are still badly known.

The vegetation is a miniature mosaic of Fourré S, of Désert S, trees with the different sizes and bushes mixed with the Fougère S and the hardy perennials.

It there not of permanent source of fresh water on these islands. The only vertebrate ones which lives there are birds. Ten species of marine birds and a terrestrial species of bird, nidifient there or remain there.

See too

Other Chilean oceanic islands:

the Easter Island
the island Salted there Gómez
the Archipel Juan Fernández

References