Melchior Islands

The Melchior Islands are a group of many low, ice-covered islands in Dallmann Bay, part of the Palmer Archipelago off the Antarctic Peninsula, lying between Brabant and Anvers Islands at about 64 degrees 19 minutes south. First sighted in 1873-74 by a German expedition under Eduard Dallmann, they were charted and named for Vice Admiral Jules Melchior of the French Navy by Jean-Baptiste Charcot's 1903-1905 expedition, which initially took what proved to be two islands, Eta and Omega, for one. The archipelago contains at least 19 named islands, including Lambda, Epsilon, Alpha, and Delta Islands, which enclose a natural anchorage called Inner Harbor, and it was resurveyed by British and Argentine expeditions in the 1920s and 1940s; it remains uninhabited and is administered under the Antarctic Treaty System.