X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Ross Island


Bathycrinicola tumidula

Bathycrinicola tumidula is also notable for inhabiting McMurdo Sound, near McMurdo Station, Ross Island here, scientists who inhabit the American station throughout the Summer months can observe this species carefully.

Extreme points of Antarctica

The southernmost volcano on the planet - Mount Erebus - is in Antarctica on the world's southernmost island reachable from the sea: Ross Island.


Alistair Mackay

The following spring when Shackelton set off to attempt to reach the South Pole, he despatched Mackay, Mawson and Edgeworth David northward to reach the South Magnetic Pole which lay approximately 650 km north-north-west of Ross Island.

Aster Glacier

It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names in 2006, after Richard C. Aster, Professor of Geophysics at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who has been involved in volcanological studies at the Mount Erebus volcano observatory on Ross Island, with ice, ocean, and tectonic seismic source research, and with seismological, tectonic, and structural studies of Antarctica.

Scott Base

Located at Pram Point on Ross Island near Mount Erebus in New Zealand's Ross Dependency territorial claim, it was set up as support to field research and the centre for research into earth sciences, but now conducts research in many fields.

Stuckless Glacier

Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) (1999) after John S. Stuckless, Department of Geology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb (later U.S. Geological Survey), who, in several seasons from 1972–73, investigated the geochemistry of McMurdo volcanic rocks, correlating samples from several Ross Island sites with DVDP core samples obtained in McMurdo Dry Valleys.


see also

Commercial Iron Works

Commercial Iron Works established a shipyard on the Ross Island site in the early 1940s, which turned out close to 200 small warships during the war, including net layers, minelayers, submarine chasers, and LCI and LCS landing craft.

Ross Dependency

Greenpeace maintained its own Antarctic station in the Ross Dependency called World Park Base from 1987 to 1992, which was on Ross Island.