Livingston Island (Russian name Smolensk, ) is an Antarctic island in the Southern Ocean, part of the South Shetlands Archipelago, a group of Antarctic islands north of the Antarctic Peninsula. It was the first land discovered south of 60° south latitude in 1819, a historic event that marked the end of a centuries-long pursuit of the mythical Terra Australis Incognita and the beginning of the exploration and utilization of real Antarctica. The name Livingston, although of unknown derivation, has been well established in international usage since the early 1820s.
Geography
Livingston Island is situated in West Antarctica, northwest of Cape Roquemaurel on the Antarctic mainland, south-southeast of Cape Horn in South America, southeast of the Diego Ramírez Islands (the southernmost land of South America), due south of the Falkland Islands, southwest of South Georgia Islands, and from the South Pole.L. Ivanov. General Geography and History of Livingston Island. In: Bulgarian Antarctic Research: A Synthesis. Eds. C. Pimpirev and N. Chipev. Sofia: St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, 2015. pp. 17–28.
The island is part of the South Shetlands archipelago, an islands chain extending in east-northeast to west-southwest direction, and separated from the nearby Antarctic Peninsula by Bransfield Strait, and from South America by the Drake Passage. The South Shetlands cover a total land area of (late 20th-century estimate; the current figure might be somewhat less than that due to coastal change), comprising (from east to west) the eleven principal islands of Clarence, Elephant, King George, Nelson, Robert, Greenwich, Livingston, Deception, Snow, Low and Smith, and a number of minor islands, islets and rocks.
Livingston is separated from neighbouring Greenwich Island to the east by the McFarlane Strait, and from Snow Island to the west-southwest by the Morton Strait. Deception Island, situated in Bransfield Strait barely southwest of Livingston's Barnard Point, is an active volcano last erupting in 1967, 1969 and 1970Deception Island: Management Package. Measure 10 (2012) Annex. ATCM XXXV Final Report. Hobart, Australia, 2012 whose flooded caldera forms the by sheltered harbour of Port Foster entered by a single wide passage known as Neptune's Bellows. There are several extinct volcanoes on Livingston Island itself that were active in the Quaternary, such as Rezen Knoll, Gleaner Heights, Edinburgh Hill and Inott Point.S. Kraus, A. Kurbatov and M. Yates. Geochemical signatures of tephras from Quaternary Antarctic Peninsula volcanoes. Andean Geology 40 (2013) 1. pp. 1–40
The island extends from Start Point in the west to Renier Point in the east, its width varying from at the neck between South Bay and Hero Bay to between Botev Point to the south and Williams Point to the north. Livingston is the second largest island in the archipelago after King George, with surface area of (early 21st-century estimate; the current figure might be somewhat smaller due to coastal change).L. Ivanov. Antarctica: Livingston Island and Greenwich, Robert, Snow and Smith Islands. Scale 1:120000 topographic map. Troyan: Manfred Wörner Foundation, 2010. (First edition 2009. )L. Ivanov and N. Ivanova. The World of Antarctica. Generis Publishing, 2022. pp. 24–30, pp. 115–117. (2014 Bulgarian edition of the book)
The coastline is irregular, with major indentations such as South Bay, False Bay, Moon Bay, Hero, Barclay, New Plymouth, Osogovo and Walker, and peninsulas such as Hurd ( long), Rozhen (), Burgas (), Varna (), Ioannes Paulus II () and Byers (). There are many islets and rocks lying in the surrounding waters, particularly off the north coast. More sizable among the adjacent minor islands are Rugged Island off Byers Peninsula, Half Moon Island in Moon Bay, Desolation Island in Hero Bay, and Zed Islands off Williams Point.
Ice cliffs, often withdrawing during recent decades to uncover new coves, beaches, spits, points and minor islands, form most of the coastline. Except for the ice-free Byers Peninsula and some isolated patches, the land surface is covered by an ice cap with ice domes and plateaus in the central and western areas, and a number of valley glaciers formed by the more mountainous relief of eastern Livingston. Certain areas of the ice cap, especially near glacier termini or over steeper slopes, are densely crevassed and almost inaccessible without specialized equipment. Elsewhere, the surface is smooth, hard and comfortable for walking, skiing or snowmobiling. However, the danger of falling into some hidden crevasse masked by a snow bridge is ever-present, including in frequently visited and supposedly well-known localities. Protracted periods of warmer weather tend to make the snow bridges more unstable and hazardous.
Typical of the island's glaciology are the conspicuous ash layers originating from volcanic activity on neighbouring Deception Island.J. López Martínez. Geología de la Antártida Occidental. Simposios T3. Salamanca: III Congreso Geológico de España y VIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Geología, 1992. pp. 271–282 The island hosts also several rock glaciers consisting of rock debris frozen in ice, such as those at Nusha Hill, MacKay Peak and Renier Point.E. Serrano and J. López Martínez. Rock glaciers in the South Shetland Islands, Western Antarctica. Geomorphology 35 (2000) 1. pp. 145–162
Along with the extensive Byers Peninsula () forming the west extremity of Livingston, the ice-free part of the island includes some minor coastal areas at Cape Shirreff, Siddins Point, Hannah Point, Williams Point, Hurd Peninsula and Rozhen Peninsula, as well as slopes in the mountain ranges, and ridges and heights in eastern Livingston that are too precipitous to keep snow. Numerous meltwater streams flow in the ice-free areas during summer, extending from hundreds of meters up to 4.5 km. Byers Peninsula alone has more than 60 such streams and as many lakes, notably Midge Lake (587 by 112 m, or 642 by 122 yd), Limnopolar Lake and Basalt Lake.M. Toro, A. Camacho, C. Rochera, E. Rico, M. Bañón, E. Fernández-Valiente, E. Marco, A. Justel, M. Avendaño, Y. Ariosa, W. Vincent and A. Quesada. Limnological characteristics of the freshwater ecosystems of Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island in maritime Antarctica. Polar Biology 30 (2007). pp. 635–649 Several such streams, lakes and ponds are situated in the vicinity of the Bulgarian and Spanish bases on Hurd Peninsula.
The principal mountain formations on the island comprise Tangra Mountains ( long and wide, with Mt Friesland rising to AUSPOS Online GPS Processing Report: Job number #101306. Space Geodesy Analysis Centre, The National Mapping Division. Geoscience Australia, 22 December 2003. 5 pp.D. Gildea. Antarctica, Antarctic Peninsula, Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Second Ascent of Mt. Friesland and New Altitude. The American Alpine Journal 46 (2004) 78. pp. 329–331), Bowles Ridge ( long, elevation ), Vidin Heights (, ), Burdick Ridge (), Melnik Ridge () and Pliska Ridge () in the eastern part of the island, and Oryahovo Heights (, ), and Dospey Heights (, ). The local ice relief is prone to change; in December 2016 the elevations of Mount Friesland and St. Boris Peak were and respectively, making the latter the summit of Livingston in that season. According to the American high accuracy Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA), Mount Friesland is higher than St. Boris Peak.I.M. Howat, C. Porter, B.E. Smith, M.-J. Noh and P. Morin. The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica. The Cryosphere 13, 2019. pp. 665–674 (Antarctic REMA Exlorer)
The first ascent of the island's Mount Friesland summit was made by the Catalans Francesc Sàbat and Jorge Enrique from Juan Carlos I Base on 30 December 1991.D. Gildea. Mountaineering in Antarctica: complete guide: Travel guide. Primento and Editions Nevicata, 2015. 192 pp. Of the other notable peaks of Tangra Mountains, Lyaskovets () was first summited by the Bulgarians Lyubomir Ivanov and Doychin Vasilev from Camp Academia on 14 December 2004,Antarctica: Livingston Island. Climb Magazine, Issue 14. Kettering, UK, April 2006. pp. 89–91L. Ivanov. Livingston Island: Tangra Mountains, Komini Peak, west slope new rock route; Lyaskovets Peak, first ascent; Zograf Peak, first ascent; Vidin Heights, Melnik Peak, Melnik Ridge, first ascent. The American Alpine Journal, 2005. pp. 312–315 Great Needle Peak (Falsa Aguja Peak, ) – by the Bulgarians Doychin Boyanov, Nikolay Petkov and Aleksander Shopov from Camp Academia on 8 January 2015,N. Petkov. Livingston Island, Falsa Aguja and Sofia Peak. American Alpine Journal: Climbs And Expeditions, 2016. (Full expedition report by N. Petkov and D. Boyanov) St. Boris – by Boyanov and Petkov from Camp Academia on 22 December 2016,D. Boyanov and N. Petkov. The Peaks of Tangra Mountains: Project Report Part Two 2016/17. Sofia, February 2017 (in Bulgarian) and Simeon () – by Boyanov, Petkov and Nedelcho Hazarbasanov from Nesebar Gap on 15 January 2017.
Of the island's nature, Captain Robert Fildes of the sealers and (both of them shipwrecked in the South Shetlands) wrote in 1821:
Climate
The climate of Livingston is polar tundra under the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system. Climatic conditions are influenced by the following specific factors: the island's location in the narrowest part of the Southern Ocean (less than 600 km between the Antarctic Convergence and the Antarctic Peninsula); the relatively small amplitude of water temperatures in the surrounding sea; the local relief including Tangra Mountains, one of the highest mountain ranges in the archipelago that contributes to shaping the local atmospheric circulation; and the ice cap of the island.N. Chipev and K. Veltchev. Livingston Island: an Environment for Antarctic Life. In: Bulgarian Antarctic Research: Life Sciences. Vol. 1. Eds. S. Golovatch and L. Penev. Sofia: Pensoft Publishers, 1996. pp. 1–6 Surface air temperature decreases with increasing altitudes, which in the interior of eastern Livingston Island reach 550 m at the centrally located Wörner Gap and over 1400 m at the crest of Tangra Mountains.
The local variety of the Antarctic Peninsula weather is particularly changeable, windy, humid and sunless. Says Australian mountaineer Damien Gildea who climbed in the area: ‘Livingston got just about the worst weather in the world’.D. Gildea. Omega Livingston Island GPS Expedition 2003. Dispatches, 17 December 2003 A US seasonal field camp on Byers Peninsula was wrecked by storm and emergency evacuated in February 2009.Antarctic Sun, March 6, 2009 Whiteouts are common, and blizzards can occur at any time of the year. Temperatures are rather constant, with diurnal temperature variations seldom exceeding a few degrees. Wind chill temperatures could be up to lower than actual ones. The highest daily temperature recorded on the island is (measured at the Chilean Base), and the lowest is (at the Spanish base).
Following a period of warming during the second half of the 20th century, the Antarctic Peninsula region has experienced a period of cooling in the early 21st century. For Livingston Island this cooling has reached over the 12-year period 2004–2016, and for the summer average temperatures over the same period. That has resulted in a longer snow cover duration in the coastal ice-free areas,C. Recio, F. Navarro, J. Otero, J. Lapazaran and S. Gonzàlez. Effects of recent cooling in the Antarctic Peninsula on snow density and surface mass balance. Polish Polar Research 39 (2018) 4. pp. 457–480 which could be exemplified by comparing the January snow line configurations shown on the 1996 and 2016 maps of the Bulgarian base.L. Ivanov. SCAR SCAGI National Report 2017 Bulgaria. Bremerhaven, 12–13 June 2017. (Mapping on slide 9 of the linked report)
It can rain or snow on Livingston Island at any time of the year, although in the winter most precipitation occurs in the form of snow.