South Sandwich Islands in the context of "60th parallel south"

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI) is a British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote and inhospitable collection of islands, consisting of South Georgia and a chain of smaller islands known as the South Sandwich Islands. South Georgia is 165 kilometres (103 mi) long and 35 kilometres (22 mi) wide and is by far the largest island in the territory. The South Sandwich Islands lie about 700 kilometres (430 mi) southeast of South Georgia. The territory's total land area is 3,903 km (1,507 sq mi). The Falkland Islands are about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) west from its nearest point.

The South Sandwich Islands are uninhabited, and a very small non-permanent population resides on South Georgia. There are no scheduled passenger flights or ferries to or from the territory, although visits by cruise liners to South Georgia are increasingly popular, with several thousand visitors each summer.

Bouvet Island (/ˈbuːveɪ/ BOO-vay; Norwegian: Bouvetøya [bʉˈvèːœʏɑ]) is an uninhabited subantarctic volcanic island and dependency of Norway. A protected nature reserve situated in the South Atlantic Ocean at the southern end of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, it is the world's most remote island. Located north of the Antarctic Circle, Bouvet Island is not part of the southern region covered by the Antarctic Treaty System.

The island lies 1,700 km (1,100 mi; 920 nmi) north of the Princess Astrid Coast of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, 1,870 km (1,160 mi; 1,010 nmi) east of the South Sandwich Islands, 1,845 km (1,146 mi; 996 nmi) south of Gough Island, and 2,520 km (1,570 mi; 1,360 nmi) south-southwest of the coast of South Africa. It has an area of 49 km (19 sq mi), 93 percent of which is covered by a glacier. The centre of the island is the ice-filled crater of an inactive volcano. Some skerries and one smaller island, Larsøya, lie along its coast. Nyrøysa, created by a rockslide in the late 1950s, is the only easy place to land and is the location of a weather station.

The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued. Historically the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, and the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands.

Today the importance of the fur trade has diminished; it is based on pelts produced at fur farms and regulated fur-bearer trapping, but has become controversial. Animal rights organizations oppose the fur trade, citing that animals are brutally killed and sometimes skinned alive. Fur has been replaced in some clothing by synthetic imitations, for example, as in ruffs on hoods of parkas.

The South Sandwich plate or the Sandwich plate (not to be confused with a culinary sandwich plate) is a small tectonic plate (microplate) bounded by the subducting South American plate to the east, the Antarctic plate to the south, and the Scotia plate to the west. The plate is separated from the Scotia plate by the East Scotia Rise, a back-arc spreading ridge formed by the subduction zone on its eastern margin. The South Sandwich Islands are located on this microplate.

The initiation of the South Sandwich subduction zone, a convergent plate margin, began around 66 million years ago in response to regional convergence of the Antarctic and South American tectonic plates. Gradual extension of the Scotia Sea and subduction roll back of South American oceanic lithosphere created the ancestral Scotia plate. The South Sandwich Microplate separated from the Scotia plate around 15 million years ago as a back arc basin formed with development of the East Scotia Rise. There is continued debate over the reason for the separation of the South Sandwich plate from the Scotia plate. Two primary mechanisms have been proposed, subducting slab roll back and absolute motion of the Scotia plate away from the trench. A combination of these two mechanisms could also contribute to the current plate boundary configurations.

Thule Island, also called Morrell Island, is one of the southernmost of the South Sandwich Islands, part of the grouping known as Southern Thule. It is named, on account of its remote location, after the mythical land of Thule, said by ancient geographers to lie at the extreme end of the Earth. The alternative name Morrell Island is after Benjamin Morrell, an American explorer and whaling captain. The island was espied by James Cook and his Resolution crew on 31 January 1775 during his attempt to find Terra Australis.

Montagu Island is the largest of the South Sandwich Islands, located in the Scotia Sea off the coast of Antarctica. Almost entirely ice-covered with only sparse rocky outcrops, Montagu consists of a large caldera with a large parasitic cone, Mount Oceanite. Several secondary volcanic cones have formed in the caldera, including Mount Belinda.

The island is rarely visited owing to the remote location, and there is only sparse vegetation. Penguins and seabirds live along the coasts. Before an eruption in 2001, which continued for several years and formed a lava delta on the northern coast, Mount Belinda was not known to have been active during the Holocene (the past 12,000 years).