Deception Island
(South Shetland Islands)
British Antarctic Territory
Location: 62° 57' S 60° 37' 59" WS of Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands. The E coast of the island was almost certainly the land charted 'in thick fog' by Bransfield, 29 January 1820. The name was apparently first recorded by Palmer, 15 November 1820, and refers to the deceptive nature of this ring-shaped island with its central harbour, a breached and drowned volcanic crater. The island was charted by sealers in 1820-21 and by the Russian Antarctic Expedition, 25 January 1821. The island was surveyed by Foster and Kendall in 1829. The island was further charted by the French Antarctic Expedition, 1837-40, in February 1838. Yankee Harbor, as used loosely for the whole island by nineteenth-century New England sealers and whalers. The island was further mapped by the French Antarctic Expedition, 1903-05. In December 1912, a Norwegian whaling station of the Hektor Whaling Co. started operations on the island and was maintained continuously until 1931. An astronomical fix for the island, in agreement with that of the French Antarctic Expedition, was obtained by Discovery Investigations in 1927. The island was visited by the Primero de Mayo (under Capt. (F) Alberto J. Oddera) in January-February 1942, and by HMS Carnarvon Castle (under Capt. E.W. Kitson, RN) in January 1943. The island was further charted by an RN Hydrographic Survey Unit in 1948-49. The island was resurveyed by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1953-54. Volcanic eruptions in December 1967, February 1969 and August 1970 caused considerable changes in the topography of the island, especially in the Telefon Bay area.