Vega Island (63°50′S 57°25′W) is an island in Antarctica, 17 nautical miles (31 km; 20 mi) long and 6 nautical miles (11 km; 6.9 mi) wide, which is the northernmost of the James Ross Island group and lies in the west part of Erebus and Terror Gulf. It is separated from James Ross Island by Herbert Sound and from Trinity Peninsula by Prince Gustav Channel.
Location
Vega Island is in Graham Land, to the southeast of the Trinity Peninsula, which is the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Erebus and Terror Gulf is to the east. James Ross Island is to the south, and the Ulu Peninsula of James Ross Island is to the west, separated from Vega Island by the Herbert Sound. The Prince Gustav Channel separates it from Corry Island and Eagle Island to the north. Cape Gordon is at the east end of the island.
Sailing directions 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 tower like rocks; the lower fells of eruptive rock are plateau like in form, and brown in color. Cape Scott Keltie (Keltie Head) and Cape Gordon, the western and eastern extremities, respectively, 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.
Name Vega Island was named by Dr. Otto Nordenskjöld, leader of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (SwedAE; 1901–04), apparently for the ship Vega used by his uncle, Baron A.E. Nordenskjold, in making the first voyage through the Northeast Passage between 1878 and 1879.
Geology
Vega Island is a volcanic island of the James Ross Island Volcanic Group. As can be observed in limited outcrops, Vega Island consists of the deeply eroded volcanic deposits of tuff cones and lava-fed, volcanic deltas. So far, these volcanic deposits have been dated at being 2, 2.67, and 5.42 Ma. They rest upon well-bedded sandstones and mudstones ranging in age from Cretaceous to Paleogene periods. These sedimentary strata outcrop near the islands's base and as bluffs along its shoreline. The lava-fed, volcanic deltas formed by the eruption of lava from a volcanic vent into a glacial lake formed by the prior melting of the ice cap in which the lake was contained. Initially, the underwater eruption resulted in volcanic breccia and basaltic pillow lava. As the volcanic deposits built up, the volcanic vent rose above lake level and erupted subaerially forming tuff cones and lava-feed, volcanic deltas that built out into the glacial lake. The basaltic lava flows form a caprock along the northwest shore, which forms an impermeable layer that results in about sixty waterfalls on warm days. In Vegas Island, the Cretaceous sedimentary strata outcrops primarily in Cape Lamb and False Island Point. The oldest Cretaceous strata consists of minor outcrops of highly bioturbated silty mudstones to silty sandstones of the Herbert Sound Member of the Santa Marta Formation. Widely exposed and overlying it are 400 m (1,300 ft) of fine-grained strata in Lamb Member of the Snow Hill Island Formation. The youngest exposed Cretaceous strata in Vegas Island belong to the Sandwich Bluff Member of the López de Bertodano Formation. This member consists of 111 m (364 ft) of a variety of sedimentary rock types, including thin conglomerates, pebbly sandstones, sandstones and mudstones, and contains slump sheets, hummocky cross-stratification and rare rootlet horizons. The Sandwich Bluff Member is exposed almost entirely along the flanks of Sandwich Bluff in an outcrop that is approximately 700 m (2,300 ft) long by 300 m (980 ft) wide.
Paleontology The exposed Cretaceous strata make Vega Island is an important site for paleontology. The Cape Lamb Member of the Snow Hill Island Formation contains an extraordinarily abundant and diverse marine invertebrate macrofauna. This macrofauna is dominated by ammonoids (mostly Gunnarites antarcticus), nautiloids, bivalves (mostly Pinna sp.), crustaceans, and serpulid worms. Fossil wood is also abundant in these strata along with a large variety of trace fossils preserved within concretions. the fossil bones of dinosaurs Hadrosauridae and birds (Charadriiformes) have been found in the Cape Lamb Member in 1986. The López de Bertodano Formation exposed at Sandwich Bluff is also an important locality for its fossils of high-latitude, latest Cretaceous terrestrial plants and vertebrates in the Southern Hemisphere. Vertebrate fossils found there include the fossils of mosasaurs, plesiosaurs (Mauisaurus sp.), dinosaurs (Hadrosauridae), and birds (Polarornis sp. and Vegavis iaai).
Northern features Northern features, from west to east, include:
Keltie Head 63°47′S 57°41′W. A rounded headland with vertical cliffs which rise to a small ice dome 395 metres (1,296 ft) high, forming the northwest end of Vega Island. Discovered by the SwedAE under Otto Nordenskjöld, 1901-04, and named by him for Sir John Scott Keltie, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, 1892-1915.
Sandwich Bluff 63°50′S 57°30′W. 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.
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