Elephant Island

E.W. Helbling, V.E. Villafane, O. Holm-Hansen (1995). Variability of phytoplankton distribution and primary production around Elephant Island, Antarctica, during 1990-1993. Polar Biol., 15, 233-246. 

One advantage of the Porter method is that it is robust enough to allow us to explore questions related to behavioral sensitivity. For example, working with the sub-Antarctic species assemblage near Elephant Island (6I 05 S, 54 43 W) and South Georgia (54°17 S, 36°30 W), Nevitt has reported consistent species-related differences in... 

The Endurance left South Georgia Island on December 5,1914, and headed south into the Weddell Sea where it was trapped by pack ice in early January of 1915. Shackleton was forced to winter-over in his ship as it slowly moved around the Weddell Sea until November 15,1915, when the ship was oiished by the ice and ultimately sank. Shackleton set up tents on the pack ice for his 28 men. In April of 1916 the camp had been transported by the moving ice to the northern edge of the pack ice and was located within sight of open water. Therefore, Shackleton put his three lifeboats into the water and headed for Elephant Island (61°10 S, 055n4 W). All three boats reached the island on April 14, 1916, where they set up the camp in Fig. 1.21 by inverting two of the lifeboats and by... 

Fig. 1.21 Shackleton s camp at Cape Wild on Elephant Island which he and his men reached after their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by pack ice in the Weddell Sea on November 15, 1915. The shelter consisted of two lifeboats turned up-side-down on the beach. On April 24, 1916, Shackleton and five of his men sailed away in the lifeboat, James Caird, hoping to...

The scientists and crew of the Endurance who had survived on Elephant Island were reunited with Shackleton in Punta Arenas, Argentina In spite of unimaginable hardships and great motional strain, Shackleton had once again brought aU of the men under his command back aUve. His great determination... 

The source mechanisms obtained are quite variable but consistent with the active tectonic processes and the complicated structure of the South Shetland Island region. The mechanisms around Elephant Island reflect the influence of the Elephant triple junction, with the intersection of the Shackleton Fracture Zone, the South Shetland Trench, and the South Scotia Ridge. In the forearc, north to the South Shetland Islands, the solutions obtained by Guidarelli and Panza (2006) seem to confirm the presence of active convergence along the South Shetland subduc-tion zone, while Plasencia (2006) evidences the presence of both transpressive and transtensive... 

As I discussed in Chapter 1, biochemistry is much the same whether we study it in Escherichia coli or an elephant. How did it happen, then, that the right questions were first asked on an island in the Atlantic Ocean and not in one of the main centers of the subject Probably the crucial step was to realize that the problem could be investigated at all, and a relative isolation from the centers of power allowed calmer reflection, independent of current fashions, than would have been possible in Madrid or Barcelona. Moreover, Melendez-Hevia s father was a distinguished paleontologist (and his brother is another), and he grew up in a household where problems of evolution were a matter of everyday discussion. As an accomplished amateur composer of music, he also doubtless has less difficulty than most of us in keeping mental track of all the interconnections of the pentoses and hexoses. 

Nevertheless, participants were not too down-hearted to indulge in a little light relief and for those of you who have not seen the course proceedings I think you might find more than an element of truth in Mitchell s Island, Coppi s Closed Universe, Kulcinski s World and Duchs Elephant ... 

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