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Entrance to Deception Island, Livingston Island in the background

Deception Island is an island in the South Shetland Islands off the Antarctic Peninsula in Antarctica. It is notable for having one of the safest harbors in Antarctica, and for being an active volcano, whose eruption in 1970 caused serious damage to the scientific stations there.

The island is located at 62 deg 57 min S, 60 deg 36 min W. It is approximately circular, with a diameter of about 12 km (7 mi), and its highest point, Mt Pond, has an elevation of 542 m (1778 ft). The center of the island is a large bay named Port Foster, about 9 km (5.5 mi) long and 6 km (3.6 mi) wide, thus covering most of the middle of the island. The bay has a narrow entrance, just 230 m (754 ft) wide, called Neptunes Bellows. Adding to the hazard is Ravn Rock, which lies 2.5 m (8 ft) below the water in the middle of the channel. Just inside Neptunes Bellows lies the cove Whalers Bay, which is bordered by a large black sand beach.

Nevertheless, since the early 19th century Deception Island was a favorite refuge from the storms and icebergs of Antarctica. It was first used by sealer s, then in 1906 a Norwegian- Chilean whaling company started using Whalers Bay as a base for a factory ship , the Gobernador Bories. Other whaling operations followed suit, and by 1914 there were 13 factory ships based there.

The station did not actually process whale blubberBlubber is a thick layer of insulating fat found under the skin of cetaceans and various other animals living in extremely cold climates ( seals, walruses). Blubber forms an important part of the traditional eskimo diet because of its high energy value., that being done on the ships, but instead took the carcasses and boiled them down to extract additional whale oil , using large iron boilerA boiler is a closed vessel in which water or another liquid is heated under pressure. The steam or hot liquid is then circulated out of the boiler for use in various process or heating applications. A safety valve is required to prevent over pressurisatis, and storing the results in iron tanks.

Whale oil prices dropped in the Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a global economic slump that began in the United States following Black Thursday, the Wall Street panic of October 1929. On October 24, 1929, share prices on Wall Street collapsed catastrophically, setting off a chain of bankruptc, making the station uneconomic, and it was abandoned in 19311931 is the common year starting on Thursday. see link for calendar) Events January January 4 Female aviator Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa January 6 Thomas Edison submits his last patent application. January 22 Sir Isaac Isaacs sworn in as the. Advances in factory ships made shore stations for carcass processing unnecessary, and so it was never reoccupied. 45 men were buried in the station's cemetery, but the cemetery was buried in a 1969For other uses, see Number 1969. For the movie, see 1969 (movie). Events January January 1 Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper The News Of The World January 5 The Derry Riots leave over 100 people i eruption, and the only remaining signs are the rusting boilers and tanks.

Other remains at Whalers Bay include an aircraftThis article refers to the tool of travel. There is a separate article about the movie Airplane An aircraft is any machine capable of atmospheric flight. Categories and clasification Aircraft fall into two broad categories: Heavier than air Heavier than a hangarairplanes, airships and helicopters. A hangar is a metal, wooden or concrete structure designed to hold one or many aircraft in protective storage. Hangars may be used to protect aircraft from weather or enemy fire (if in a wartime environment) when they with a bright orange derelict airplane fuselageIn an aircraft, the fuselage is the main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. In single engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, athough in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselag outside, and the British scientific station house, with the middle torn out by the mudflows in 1969.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Argentina and the UK contested control of Deception Island with various tit-for-tat removals of each other's flags, and temporary occupation of the island, and in 1961 Argentina's president Arturo Frondizi visited to show his country's interest as well.

However, the volcano has mostly taken care of any attempts to maintain permanent facilities, and as of 2000, there were only two scientific stations still in use, both summer-only - Spain has Gabriel de Castilla, and Argentina its Decepcion station.

Deception Island has several colonies of chinstrap penguins, and it is possible to make a warm bath by digging into the sands of the beach, so it has become a popular tourist stop in Antarctica.