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The Guébriant Islands (Spanish: Islotes Guébriant) are two small islands west of the Antarctic Peninsula, in the northern part of Marguerite Bay, lying southeast of Cape Alexandra, the southeast cape of Adelaide Island. They were discovered by the fourth French Antarctic Expedition 1908–1910 under Jean-Baptiste Charcot and named by him as "Îlots de Guébriant" after the Reverend Jean-Baptiste Marie Budes de Guébriant, a French Catholic missionary to China.〔http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/g/guebriant-jeanbaptiste-budes-de.php〕 The islands were surveyed by the Falklands Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS, the predecessor of the British Antarctic Survey) in 1948. They were recharted by a Royal Navy Hydrographic Survey Unit in 1963.〔http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=109132〕〔http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=154:3:4412732919782631::NO::P3_ANTAR_ID,P3_TITLE:6117%2CGu%C3%A9briant%20Islands〕 Both islands have an elongated shape, stretching in a north east to south west direction. The smaller (northernmost) island is about 500 m long, 200 m wide and has a highest point of 92 meters.〔http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/apc/namemap.html〕〔British Antarctic Survey topographic map (Satellite Image Map) SQ 19-20/14 (Extended), Edition 1, 2010, Adelaide Island and Arrowsmith Peninsula, Scale 1:250.000〕 The southern island has a similar width and is about 1100 m long. It is much lower. The islands are separated by a channel about 200 m wide. In summer they become virtually ice free. About 1 km to the south sest of the islands lies Mission Rock, also named after missionary de Guébriant. Mission Rock is not considered part of the Guébriant Islands proper. Argentina, Chile and the United Kingdom all consider the Guébriant Islands to be part of their national territory, as they fall within the overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of all three nations. There is however no (known) physical presence of any of these nations on the islands. On a clear day, the Guébriant Islands can be seen from Rothera Research Station, a distance of about 28 km (see picture). == Flora and fauna == The flora and fauna of the islands seem to be poorly investigated. An exhaustive publication from 1995 tempting to list ''all'' the breeding sites of the snow petrel (''Pagodroma nivea'') in Antarctica mentions the Guébriant Islands as a possible breeding site, based on a single observation from 1962.〔J.P. Croxall, W.K. Steele, S.J. McInnes & P.A. Prince: Breeding distribution of the Snow Petrel Pagodroma nivea. In: Marine Ornithology, Vol. 23 No. 2, 1995, also on http://www.marineornithology.org/PDF/23_2/23_2_1.pdf〕 This may indicate not only that the observation from 1962 was sketchy, but also that there are no known written records of the islands' bird life in the 33 years thereafter. The vegetation of the Guébriant Islands consists of moss patches of the genera ''Brachythecium'', ''Bryum'' and ''Drepanocladus'', among other things. In these moss communities the most abundant nematodes (tiny roundworms) are from the genera ''Plectus'' and ''Aphenchoides''. In moss patches of ''Drepanocladus'' these worms may number 428,000 per square meter in just the uppermost 2.5 cm.〔V.W. Spaull, Distribution of soil Nematodes in the maritime Antarctic, British Antarctic Survey Bulletin, No.37, 1973, pp 1-6, also on http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/documents/bas_bulletins/bulletin37_02.pdf〕 ''Alectoria minuscula ''f.'' biformis'', a species of lichen, was found on the islands by B. Stonehouse and V.E. Fuchs on 13 October 1948 and was abundant at altitudes above 100 ft.〔British Antarctic Survey (formerly Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey), Scientific Reports No. 38, Antarctic Lichens, I. The Genera Usnea, Ramalina, Himantormia, Alectoria, Cornicularia. By: Mackenzie Lamb, D.Sc. (Farlow Herbarium, Harvard University). Published by the British Antarctic Survey, 1964. Also on: http://www.nhm2.uio.no/botanisk/lav/RLL/PDF/R10911.pdf〕 Another lichen species, of the genus ''Lecanora'', was found on the leeward slope of the southern Guébriant island at an altitude of 61 metres in 1961.〔http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OTrIGOc8x5QJ:data.gbif.org/occurrences/165079285+%22guebriant%22+site:http://data.gbif.org&cd=1&hl=nl&ct=clnk&gl=nl&source=www.google.nl〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Guébriant Islands」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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