The US Defense Mapping Agency's Sailing Directions for Antarctica (1976) describes Vega Island as follows:
Vega Island, the northernmost of the Ross Group, is about 16 miles long, east and west, and 5 miles wide, It is high and precipitous, with towerlike rocks; the lower fells of eruptive rock are plateaulike in form, and brown in color. Cape Scott Keltie (Keltie Head) and Cape Gordon, the western and eastern expremities, repectively, are high projecting headlands. On the northern coast, near the middle of the island, is Cape Wellmet, a dark, conspicuous, jutting headland.
Devil Island, 680 feet high, lies close to the northern shore in the vicinity of Cape Wellmet. It has steep stone sides and is ice-free. Cape Gordon is believed to be clear of dangers: the Wyatt Earp passed the high cliffs less than 100 yards distant. On the southern coast near the middle of the island a headland, known as False Island Point, extends for about 2 1/4 miles to the southward. A rock lies about 1/2 mile offshore in a position about 4 miles east-northeastward of False Island Point; some charts show this rock as lying on a shoal area extending up to 3/4 mile from a point on the shore. A shoal, with a depth of 0.9m (3 ft.) lies about 6 3/4 miles eastward of Cape Gordon.[3]
Vega Island is a volcanic island of the James Ross Island Volcanic Group.[4]
The island is a rare volcano type called a móberg, or tuya, which was formed by a three-stage eruption sequence below an ice cap. Stage one was a subglacial hyaloclastic eruption, which shattered the lava into glass, ash, and sand which has since weathered to yellow palagonite layers. The second phase was a lava eruption into a meltwater glacial lake contained in the ice cap, which resulted in volcanic breccia and basalt pillow lava. The final phase was subaerial basalt lava flows on top of the previous volcanic deposits after the lake drained or boiled away. The basalt flows from a caprock along the northwest shore, which forms an impermeable layer that results in about sixty waterfalls on warm days.[5]
Paleontology
Vega Island is an important site for paleontology. The region is extremely rich in terrestrial and marine fossils which span the boundary of the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods, covering the point in time when dinosaurs became extinct. Fossils found on the island include hadrosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs.[6][7]
63°50′S57°30′W / 63.833°S 57.500°W / -63.833; -57.500.
A flat-topped mountain, 610 metres (2,000 ft) high, broken sharply at its west side by a steep dark bluff standing slightly west of center on Vega Island.
Discovered by the SwedAE under Otto Nordenskjöld, 1901-04.
Charted in 1945 by the FIDS, and so named because a horizontal snow-holding band of rock breaks the western cliff giving it the appearance of a sandwich when viewed from the north.[9]
63°47′S57°19′W / 63.783°S 57.317°W / -63.783; -57.317.
A dark, conspicuous headland near the center of the north side of Vega Island, close south of Trinity Peninsula.
Cape Well-met was discovered and named by the SwedAE, 1901-04-
The name commemorates the long delayed union at this point of a relief party under Doctor Johan Gunnar Andersson and the winter party under Doctor Otto Nordenskjöld after twenty months of enforced separation.[11]
63°55′S57°20′W / 63.917°S 57.333°W / -63.917; -57.333.
A headland 1 nautical mile (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) long and 0.5 nautical miles (0.93 km; 0.58 mi) wide, which is connected by a low, narrow, almost invisible isthmus to the south side of Vega Island.
First sighted in February 1902 and charted as an island by the SwedAE under Otto Nordenskjöld.
It was determined to be a part of Vega Island in 1945 by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), who applied this descriptive name.[15]
Mahogany Bluff from Pastorizo Bay. The sea is in the process of freezing, forming grease ice.
63°53′S57°14′W / 63.883°S 57.233°W / -63.883; -57.233.
A rocky bluff 5 nautical miles (9.3 km; 5.8 mi) southwest of Cape Gordon, forming the east side of Pastorizo Bay.
So named by UK-APC because of the striking deep red-brown color of the bluff.[17]
