 Satellite image showing Candlemas Island and the smaller Vindication Island | |
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| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | 57°05′S 26°43′W / 57.09°S 26.71°W[1] |
| Highest elevation | 550 m (1800 ft) |
| Highest point | Mount Andromeda |
| Administration | |
United Kingdom | |
| Territory | South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands |
| Demographics | |
| Population | Uninhabited |
Candlemas Island is a small uninhabited island of the Candlemas Islands in the South Sandwich Islands. It is one of about a dozen islands that make up the South Sandwich island arc, a chain of volcanoes in the Southern Ocean that was discovered in 1775 by James Cook. The volcanism is caused by the subduction of the South American Plate beneath the Sandwich Plate. The island is remote and rarely visited due to the often hostile weather conditions, but is populated by penguins and seabirds, which form large breeding colonies.
The island consists of two parts. The southeastern part is older and consists of the heavily glaciated volcanoes Mount Andromeda - with 550 metres (1,800 ft) elevation the highest point of the island - and Mount Perseus, and shows no evidence of recent activity. The northwestern part features the younger scoria cone complex Lucifer Hill, which is surrounded by lava flows. Some of the lava flows may have been emplaced during the 20th century. The older rocks consist mostly of basalt and basaltic andesite, while the younger rocks are predominantly andesite and dacite; the two groups share a common magma formation process.
The Lucifer Hill complex features numerous fumaroles which emit volcanic gases. A vegetation community consisting of mosses and lichens grows around the fumaroles, with some members extending to non-fumarolic terrain.
- ^ Logan et al. 2000, p. 1742.