Edgeøya
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Edgeøya | |
|---|---|
| Area | 5 073 km² |
| Glaciated area | 2 102 km² |
| Perimeter | 502 km |
Edgeøya, occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is an uninhabited Norwegian island in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the South East Svalbard Nature Reserve, home to polar bears and reindeer. Its eastern side is covered by an ice field. The island is 5,073 square kilometers (1,958 sq mi) in area, making it the third largest in the Svalbard archipelago. The island is named after Thomas Edge (d. 1624), an English merchant and whaler. It is seldom visited today.
[edit] History
The history of Edgeøya's discovery has been a matter of dispute. The Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius illustrated a coastline to the east of Spitsbergen in a chart of 1612. Indented, with islands offshore, and identified as "Gerrits Eylant", this has been identified by some historians (notably, Wieder in 1919) as the first record of Edgeøya's south coast. Another early chart apparently showing this coastline was produced by Joris Carolus, a Dutch navigator, in 1614. Carolus showed the coastline split into two parts: "Onbekende Cust" in the west, and "Marfyn" in the east. Islands are shown offshore of Marfyn.
Martin Conway argued in 1901 that Carolus' chart indicated he discovered Edgeøya in a 1614 expedition in which he had served as pilot, although left open the possibility that Thomas Marmaduke of Hull may have found it one year earlier. Conway, however, did not know of Plancius' earlier chart. Wieder (1919) identified Plancius' coastline as that of Edgeøya and concluded that the island must have been discovered by Dutch seafarers. This would require there to have been previously forgotten Dutch expeditions to Svalbard between Willem Barents in 1596 and Plancius' production of the 1612 chart. Thomas Edge, the Englishman from whom the island takes its current name, entered rather later into the fray, sighting the island in 1616.
While no major settlement grew upon Edgeøya, whaling and walrus hunting were extensive industries in the area. Remains of these can be found offshore of Edgeøya, on Bölscheøya in the Tusenøyane group.
[edit] Geography
Edgeøya is located at geographical co-ordinates . To the west lies Storfjorden, which separates Edgeøya from Spitsbergen. To the north, the sound known as Freemansundet lies between Edgeøya and Barentsøya. In the northeast, Olgastretet separates Edgeøya from Kong Karls Land. Minor island groups lay to the east (Ryke Yseøyane) and to the south (Tusenøyane). The island's south coast in indented by its largest fjord, Tjuvfjorden. The island's northernmost point is Kapp Heuglin, a cape named in August 1870 for the German explorer Theodor von Heuglin (1824-76), during the Heuglin-Zeil expedition.
Geologically, the island resembles central Spitsbergen, with Mesozoic rocks (specifically, Triassic shales with subordinate sandstones, with occasional diabase intrusions, and, in the southwest, strata from the Jurassic), the effects of glacial erosion, and appearance of polar ice caps. On the eastern side of the island is the large glacier of Edgeøyjøkulen.
Along with Barentsøya and some of the neighbouring islands, Edgeøya forms part of South East Svalbard Nature Reserve, established by the Norwegian government in 1973. There is a significant reindeer population, and the island is an important site for polar bear reproduction.
[edit] References
- Edgeøya in the Svalbard place names database, Norwegian Polar Institute (URL accessed 29 July 2006)
- Kapp Heuglin in the Svalbard place names database, Norwegian Polar Institute (URL accessed 29 July 2006)
- Edgeøya on Svalbard Images (URL accessed 24 July 2006)
- Conway, Martin (June 1901). "Joris Carolus, Discoverer of Edge Island". Geographical Journal 17 (6): 623-632. Retrieved on 2006-07-29.
