McDonald_Beach

McDonald Beach

McDonald Beach

Beach in Antarctica

McDonald Beach is an extensive beach lying west of Inclusion Hill and 6 nautical miles (11 km) southwest of Cape Bird on Ross Island, Antarctica. It was named by the New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE), 1958–59, after Captain Edwin A. McDonald, then Deputy Commander, US Naval Support Force, Antarctica, who provided extensive transport and other facilities to the NZGSAE in support of the survey of the Cape Bird area.[1]

Adélie penguins breed in the IBA

Important Bird Area

A 269 ha site comprising all the ice-free ground at the beach has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports about 43,000 breeding pairs of Adélie penguins – the mean total count over 30 seasons between 1981 and 2012.[2]

References

  1. [1]
    "McDonald Beach". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 2013-09-05.
  2. [2]
    "McDonald Beach, Cape Bird". BirdLife Data Zone. BirdLife International. 2015. Retrieved 17 November 2020.

77°15′S 166°22′E


Stub icon

This Ross Island location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article McDonald_Beach, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.