Marion island

The island Marion is a southern island South-African of the Indian Ocean, to 1.770 km in the south-east of Port Elizabeth.

With the island of the Prince-Edouard , it forms the Archipel of the Prince-Edouard.

History

The archipelago would have been seen by a Dutch navigator, Barent Barentszoon Lam, sailing on board the Maerseveen on the way for the the Eastern Indies. It would have named, the island more in north, island of the Prince-Edouard and Marion, the second island. But it was mistaken in their position by noting the archipelago with the latitude in southern 41° so that Dutch forwardings which followed did not find it.

Redécouverte in January 1771 by the French navigator Marc-Joseph Marion of Fresne, with the research of the southern continent, it named it Ground of the hope. Its second Crozet, met on the voyage of the return, the captain James Cook in the Cape and spoke to him about the archipelago. This last decided to go to see the islands which it re-elected Iles of the Prince-Edouard in the honor of 4th wire of the king George III. Like the other navigators before him, it could not approach there.

As for much of southern islands, are fishermen and not explorers who approached the first time on the island, probably since 1799. The island was again visited by the hunters of Morses during the 19th century. The explorer James Clark Ross on the way for the Antarctic tried to approach there in 1840, without success. It was finally the British captain Nares with the HMS Challenger which approached the island during a forwarding, naturalists unloaded there but remained only a few hours there, just time to study and take specimens of fauna and flora.

The British proclaimed their sovereignty on the Marion island. From the beginning of the 20th century, they granted licenses to various companies for the exploitation of the Guano and the hunting rightses to the seals and the whales.

In 1947, they transferred their sovereignty on the archipelago to the South Africa, fearing that they do not fall into hostile hands. The January 4th 1948, the Republic of South Africa in taken officially possession (Snoektown operation).

The South-Africans installed a weather station there then a center of study in biology. A score of researchers and meteorologist winter on the Marion island.

In 1995, the archipelago was declared natural reserve.

Geography

The Marion island is located at 46°52' 34" south of latitude and 37°51' 32" of longitude, in the south is Indian Ocean, in the zone known as of the howling 40èmes. It is administratively attached to the the Cape Province.

It does not have permanent inhabitants except for the researchers.

Formed by one of the twin peaks of a Volcano, the other being the island of the Prince-Edouard to a score of kilometers, she still knows a minor volcanic activity.

Long for a width of 12 km, its surface 19 km is of 290 km ². Its culminating point is Mascarin Peak with 1.242 meters, top constantly snow-covered. It is surrounded by a great number of secondary craters and small lakes. The ground is very embossed and gullied, had with frequent precipitations of rain and snow.

The east coast rock with some sand beaches. The island is surrounded by Varech, making navigation difficult.

Time is generally bad with frequent precipitations and of strong winds. Weak in summer, the temperatures remain in lower part of zero for wintry time.

The vegetation very thin, especially consists of ferns, foams and of lichen, not of tree, because of the strong winds, the famous 40èmes howling.

Fauna primarily consists of birds and marine mammals, like the other islands autrales. The island shelters one of the rare royal colonies of Cormoran S. Mice, species arrived with the fishing vessels at the XIXe century caused damage with the flora and the indigenous insects. Four cats introduced in 1949 to drive out them multiplied until reaching a population of 3700 individuals in 1979. A severe program of extermination made it possible to reconstitute the populations of birds threatened like the Pétrel S.

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