Seal Island

Seal Island, Seal Islands and similar may refer to:

Geography

Africa

America(s)

Antarctica

Australia

Seal Islands (California)

Seal Islands are a pair of islands in Suisun Bay at the mouth of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in Contra Costa County, California, 10 km east of Benicia, and 500 metres off-shore from the former Concord Naval Weapons Station and Port Chicago Naval Magazine.

See also

References

Coordinates: 38°03′20″N 122°02′50″W / 38.055475°N 122.047186°W / 38.055475; -122.047186

Seal Islands (South Shetland Islands)

The Seal Islands (also known as Îles des Phoques, Islas Foca, Islotes Foca and Seal Rocks) are a group of small islands and rocky islets lying about 7 km north and north-west of Elephant Island, in the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. They extend east – west for about 5 km, and are separated from Elephant Island by Sealers Passage. The group takes its name from the largest island, which Captain William Smith named Seal Island in 1820 because of the number of seals killed there.

Description

Seal Island, the largest in the group, has a coastline of precipitous cliffs, with a sandy beach on the western shore and some small coves. It rises to 125 m in height. It is constituted of poorly consolidated sedimentary rocks which are susceptible to wave and runoff erosion. Other islands in the group are similarly rocky with steep cliffs and few beaches. Ice-cover is seasonal.

Important Bird Area

The islands, with the intervening marine zone, have been identified as a 514 ha Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because they support several breeding colonies, totalling some 20,000 pairs, of chinstrap penguins. Other birds nesting in the group in smaller numbers include macaroni penguins (350 pairs), southern giant petrels, imperial shags, Cape petrels, Wilson's storm petrels, snowy sheathbills and kelp gulls. Antarctic fur seals breed on the islands, with around 600 seal pups born each year. Southern elephant, Weddell, leopard and crabeater seals haul out there.

Seal Islands (Aleutians East)

The Seal Islands are a group of 12/+ islands in the Bering Sea, trending northeast 7 miles (11 km), close to the shores of Bristol Bay, Alaska, 33 miles (53 km) southwest of Port Heiden, Alaska Airfield; Bristol Bay Low.

Etymology

The Seal Islands appear as "Ostrova Nerpichoi," meaning "Seal Islands" on Russian maps. They were given their name by Captain Mikhail Dmitrievich Tebenkov, who charted the Northwest Coasts of America (1852, map 24), IRN. They appeared for the first time as "Seal Islands" on an USBF chart in 1888.

References

General references