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103-540: The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC) is a Vancouver-based company formerly run by Russ George and funded by the Old Massett band of Haida Gwaii . The company conducted a small scale ocean fertilization experiment in 2012. 120 tons of iron compound were deposited in the migration routes of pink and sockeye salmon in the Pacific ocean West of Haida Gwaii over a period of 30 days. The project resulted in
206-485: A pre-Roman Iberian word meaning " turtle ", the meaning it still has in most dialects . Within Ecuadorian Spanish , however, it is now also used to describe the islands' large tortoises. The islands' name is pronounced [ˈislas ɣaˈlapaɣos] in most dialects of Spanish but [ˈihlah ɣaˈlapaɣoh] by locals. (The accent over the second A does not change the name's pronunciation but moves
309-598: A 'stepping stone' role in the interaction between Amerindians or Polynesians in prehistory". The lack of fresh water on the islands seems to have limited visits and settlement, if any ever occurred. European discovery of the Galápagos Islands is recorded occurring on 10 March 1535, when the Spanish bishop of Panama Tomás de Berlanga —sailing to Peru to adjudicate a dispute between Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro —drifted off course while his ship
412-419: A 35,000 km (14,000 sq mi) plankton bloom that lasted for several months and was confirmed by NASA satellite imagery. The HSRC scientific team collected a significant amount of oceanographic data using autonomous underwater vehicles ( Slocum Gliders ), Argo Drifters , Multi-Spectral Sonar, Surface Seawater samples, Phytoplankton Tows and other methods. The experiment, which was carried out without
515-444: A bill of goods. We approached him, and we based that on ten years of work with him in other fields. I’ve known Russ for over ten years and I’ll tell you something that is very rare: he has never once lied to me, he’s only told me the truth, he has a great integrity, and he’s never let us down. And every time he’s told me something that I thought was unbelievable I’ve checked it out and he’s always been right. And I challenge anyone else in
618-682: A bloody uprising in 1841 that caused most settlers to return to the mainland. Villamil returned to try to rebuild afterwards but was unsuccessful and abandoned the attempt in 1848. The second voyage of HMS Beagle under captain Robert FitzRoy was undertaken to better survey the coasts and harbours of South America for the British Navy 's Hydrographic Department . It reached the Galápagos on 15 September 1835 and—while surveying its islands, channels, and bays—the captain and others on
721-510: A counterclaim the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation claimed that Russ George lied about his credentials and academic qualifications, assaulted the project leader, and acted in an "irrational, unprofessional and offensive manner". In 2016, Russ George was ordered to pay security for legal costs. On July 15, 2014, the oceanographic scientific data gathered during the project was made publicly available under
824-624: A far-fetched legend, especially since the Incas were not typically a seafaring people. A 1952 archaeological survey by Thor Heyerdahl and Arne Skjølsvold found potsherds and other artifacts from several sites on the islands that they claimed suggested visitation by South Americans during the pre-Columbian era . The group located an Inca flute and shards from more than 130 pieces of ceramics, later identified as pre-Incan. However, no remains of graves, ceremonial vessels, or buildings have ever been found, suggesting no permanent settlement occurred before
927-632: A formal ceremony of annexation on Floreana on 12 February 1832, now celebrated locally as Galápagos Day or the Day of the Province. (Darwin's birthday was the same day, as was Francisco de Orellana 's arrival at the headwaters of the Amazon River in 1542, celebrated on the mainland as Amazon Day .) Villamil arrived in September and established Haven of Peace ( Asilo de Paz or de la Paz ) in
1030-631: A large area in the Pacific Ocean. Russel George was chosen to act as the lead scientist of this operation. In July 2012, George departed from Victoria with a crew of 11 on a chartered fishing vessel named the Ocean Pearl, loaded with 100 tons of iron-rich nutrient. The vessel exited the Strait of Juan de Fuca and headed northwards into the Gulf of Alaska until they reached the currents known as
1133-469: A reduced issue price. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation insures the deal, which per Reuters was "in the works for more than a year", predating UBS takeover of Credit Suisse. The islands are administered as Ecuador's Galápagos Province , established by presidential decree on 18 February 1973 during the administration of Guillermo Rodríguez Lara . The province is divided into three cantons , each covering groups of islands. The capital
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#17327652309971236-517: A rise in sea level, greater wave action, and a depletion of nutrients in the water. This cycle can greatly affect the precipitation from one year to another. At Charles Darwin Station, the precipitation during the month of March in the particularly wet year of 1969 was 249.0 mm (9.80 in), but during March 1970 the next year it was only 1.2 mm (0.047 in). There is also a large range in precipitation from one place to another and across
1339-541: A significant increase in concentrations of Domoic acid on the northern coast of Haida Gwaii in the latter half of 2012, and citizens of Old Masset reported with unease that the island was hit by the strongest red tides ever seen there. However, Professor Victor Smetacek, a top authority from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, who has done many experiments in
1442-416: Is Puerto Baquerizo Moreno . The largest ethnic group is composed of Ecuadorian Mestizos , the mixed descendants of Spanish colonists and indigenous Native Americans, who arrived mainly in the last century from the continental part of Ecuador . Some descendants of the early European and American colonists on the islands also still remain on the islands. In 1959, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 people called
1545-478: Is associated with a sill 2 km (1.2 mi) below the caldera. The caldera on Fernandina experienced the largest basaltic volcano collapse in history, with the 1968 phreatomagmatic eruption . Fernandina has also been the most active volcano since 1790, with recent eruptions in 1991, 1995, 2005, and 2009, and the entire surface has been covered in numerous flows since 4.3 Ka . The western volcanoes have numerous tuff cones . The islands are located in
1648-592: Is at the northern boundary of the Pacific Large Low Shear Velocity Province while the Easter Hotspot is on the southern boundary. The Galápagos Archipelago is characterized by numerous contemporaneous volcanoes, some with plume magma sources, others from the asthenosphere , possibly due to the young and thin oceanic crust . The GSC caused structural weaknesses in this thin lithosphere leading to eruptions forming
1751-457: Is no firm evidence that Polynesians or the indigenous peoples of South America reached the islands before their accidental discovery by Bishop Tomás de Berlanga in 1535. If some visitors did arrive, poor access to fresh water on the islands seems to have limited settlement. The Spanish Empire similarly ignored the islands, although during the Golden Age of Piracy various pirates used
1854-440: Is the guiding principle of the company. As President, I am very cognisant of all of the requirements of the scientific and legal nature that applies to this project. I’d like to say that at this time that the international media and national media seems to have focused on Russ George who we brought in as our Chief Scientist. I want to make this emphatically clear: Russ George did not, I’m saying did not come to us to dupe us or sell us
1957-559: The Australian National University stated that certain Asia–Pacific taxa may have been growing in the Galápagos prior to 1535. This opens a direction for future research which might "constitute a strong line of evidence for accidental or deliberate landfall in the Galápagos by a Polynesian vessel", although the report noted current scholarship finds no evidence that Pacific islands beyond Easter Island "play[ed]
2060-579: The Canary Islands instead in order to avoid confrontation with the Sea Shepherds . Much to the surprise of Sea Shepherds, on November 14, 2007, the vessel appeared in the harbor of St. Georges , where it refueled as planned. At this point, the vessel had no iron dust aboard, with Planktos attempting to obtain the required iron for the experiment dust from ground-up metal scrap instead, contradicting earlier claims of using virgin iron dust in
2163-708: The Enchanted Isles or Islands ( Islas Encantadas ) from sailors' difficulty with the winds and currents around them; as the Ecuador Archipelago ( Archipiélago de Ecuador ) or Archipelago of the Equator ( Archipiélago del Ecuador ) following their settlement by Ecuador in 1832; and as the Colon or Columbus Archipelago ( Archipiélago del Colón ) in 1892 upon the quadricentennial of Columbus 's first voyage . The islands were mapped by
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#17327652309972266-584: The English buccaneer William Ambrosia Cowley in 1684 and by the British captain James Colnett in 1793. The names they chose to honour British kings , nobles , and naval officers of their eras continued to be used for the major islands until recently and are still used for many of the smaller islets. The Spanish names have varied over time, but the current official names have gradually supplanted
2369-497: The Galapagos group for specimens; this included Wreck Bay on Chatham Island (now San Cristóbal Island ) on 4 April and Charles Island (now Floreana Island ) on 8 April. José Valdizán and Manuel Julián Cobos tried a new colonization, beginning the exploitation of a type of lichen found in the islands ( Roccella portentosa ) used as a coloring agent. After the assassination of Valdizán by some of his workers, Cobos brought from
2472-698: The Galápagos triple junction . The archipelago is located on the Nazca plate (a tectonic plate), which is moving east/southeast, diving under the South American plate at a rate of about 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) per year. It is also atop the Galápagos hotspot , a place where the Earth's crust is being melted from below by a mantle plume , creating volcanoes. The first islands formed here at least 8 million and possibly up to 90 million years ago. While
2575-800: The Haida Eddies , approximately 200 miles westward of the coast of Haida Gwaii . The crew spent the next weeks zigzagging the ship over the ocean while mixing the 4 000 50-lb bags of nutrients with seawater and pumping them overboard using a hose before returning to Victoria to take 20 more tons of nutrient aboard to repeat the process in August. As of 2022, this remains by far the largest Iron fertilization operation in history. George claimed this resulted in increased growth of phytoplankton over 10,000 square miles. Some critics asserted George's actions were illegal while others have argued that they were not. Scientists were especially concerned regarding
2678-829: The ODbL license. Russ George Russ George (Darcy Russel George; born 6 December 1949) is an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the San Francisco–based firm Planktos Inc. which claims to "restore ecosystems and slow climate change". In 2007 he provided testimony to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming . The ecorestoration treeplanting company he founded in Canada in 1973 originally called Coast Range has planted upwards of 250 million trees , and continues even now. He used to be member of Greenpeace and
2781-468: The ODbL license. The experiment did result in an unusually large phytoplankton bloom that lasted at least until September 2012, when it became increasingly difficult to detect as the biomass dispersed into the surrounding waters. In the seas of Southeast Alaska, the relevant area of the experiment, the expected catch of Pink Salmon in 2013 was predicted by salmon experts and managers to be 54 million fish. The catch turned out to be 224 million Pinks,
2884-592: The Republic of Ecuador , with a population of slightly over 33,000 (2020) . The province is divided into the cantons of San Cristóbal , Santa Cruz , and Isabela , the three most populated islands in the chain. The Galápagos are famous for their large number of endemic species , which were studied by Charles Darwin in the 1830s and inspired his theory of evolution by means of natural selection . All of these islands are protected as part of Ecuador's Galápagos National Park and Marine Reserve . Thus far, there
2987-605: The indigenous peoples of South America ever made it to the islands is disputed. Oceanic Pacific islands in the same general area as Galápagos—including Clipperton , Cocos , the Desventuradas , the Juan Fernández Islands , and the Revillagigedos —were all uninhabited when discovered by Europeans, with no evidence to indicate any prehistoric human activity. The easternmost oceanic island in
3090-770: The (OPR) type of project.” Webb added that the amendment to the London Protocol that relates to OPR has not “yet entered into force so, at the moment, has no legal effect.” Edward A. (Ted) Parson, the Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law and Faculty Co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles said about the Haida project at
3193-551: The 1990s and 2000s, violent confrontations between parts of the local population and the Galápagos National Park Service occurred, including capturing and killing giant tortoises and holding staff of the Galápagos National Park Service hostage to obtain higher annual sea cucumber quotas. In May 2023, Credit Suisse said it would buy Ecuador's debt of $ 1.6 billion in a " Debt-for-nature swap ". It will sell 2035 and 2040 bonds for Galapagos conservation at
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3296-549: The British crew, mentioning in passing that the tortoises of the different islands could be easily identified by their different shells. By the end of his voyage, Darwin was beginning to wonder if the distribution of the mockingbirds and the tortoises might "undermine the stability of Species ". Upon his return to England, analysis of the bird specimens he had collected showed that what had appeared to be many different species were actually finches displaying developments unique to
3399-590: The CBD have adopted two decisions discouraging ocean fertilization, and geoengineering generally. But these are purely advisory – and are moreover so clumsily drafted that even if they were legally binding (which they are not), their operational meaning would be utterly opaque… Nations are under no legal obligation to refrain from ocean fertilization research, nor to submit proposals to any international process.” Search warrants were executed by Environment Canada 's enforcement branch to investigate Russ George's office concerning
3502-472: The Convention on Biological Diversity have adopted a resolution, which says that countries should avoid “ ocean fertilization activities,” except those conducted as part of small-scale scientific research projects in coastal waters. Notably, however, the resolution is not legally binding. So, provided countries complied with other provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity, they could go ahead with
3605-531: The English ones for most of the major islands. Volcanism has been continuous on the Galápagos Islands for at least 20 million years, and perhaps even longer. The mantle plume beneath the east-ward moving Nazca plate (51 km/ myr ) has given rise to a 3-kilometre-thick platform under the island chain and seamounts . Besides the Galápagos Archipelago , other key tectonic features in
3708-479: The Galápagos Archipelago are closer volcano spacing, smaller volcano sizes, and larger calderas . For instance, Isabela Island includes six major volcanoes, Ecuador, Wolf, Darwin, Alcedo, Sierra Negra and Cerro Azul, with most recent eruptions ranging from 1813 to 2008. The neighboring islands of Santiago and Fernandina last erupted in 1906 and 2009, respectively. Overall, the nine active volcanoes in
3811-637: The Galápagos Platform. Fernandina and Isabela in particular are aligned along these weaknesses. Lacking a well-defined rift zone , the islands have a high rate of inflation prior to eruption. Sierra Negra on Isabela Island experienced a 240 cm (94 in) uplift between 1992 and 1998, most recent eruption in 2005, while Fernandina on Fernandina Island indicated an uplift of 90 cm (35 in), most recent eruption in 2009. Alcedo on Isabela Island had an uplift of greater than 90 cm, most recent eruption in 1993. Additional characteristics of
3914-580: The Galápagos as a base for raiding Spanish shipping along the Peruvian coast. The goats and black and brown rats introduced during this period greatly damaged the existing ecosystems of several islands. British sailors were chiefly responsible for exploring and mapping the area. Darwin's voyage on HMS Beagle was part of an extensive British survey of the coasts of South America. Ecuador , which won its independence from Spain in 1822 and left Gran Colombia in 1830, formally occupied and claimed
4017-408: The Galápagos collecting scientific material on geology, entomology , ornithology , botany , zoology , and herpetology . Another expedition from that Academy was done in 1932 (Templeton Crocker Expedition) to collect insects, fish, shells , fossils , birds, and plants. For a long time during the early 1900s and at least through 1929, a cash-strapped Ecuador had reached out for potential buyers of
4120-473: The Galápagos for these purposes on its way to the Offshore Grounds. On Colnett's Charles Island, while most of the crew were hunting tortoises one crewmember, English boatsteerer Thomas Chappel—for reasons still unclear—lit a fire which quickly burned out of control. Some of the tortoise hunters had a narrow escape and had to run a gauntlet of fire to get back to the ship. Soon almost the entire island
4223-498: The Galápagos tortoises to extract their fat. The tortoises could be kept on board ship as a means of providing of fresh protein, as these animals could survive for several months on board without any food or water. The hunting of the tortoises was responsible for greatly diminishing, and in some cases eliminating, certain species. Along with whalers came the fur-seal hunters, who brought the population of this animal close to extinction. The first known permanent human resident on Galápagos
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4326-531: The Galápagos, would be of great benefit since the geopolitical situation of Chile was expected to drastically change when the Panama Canal opened. Another benefit would be to widen the security radius of Chile. Chile was alarmed by the United States plans to establish a Guantanamo-like base in the Galápagos Islands since it would mean that Chile's nitrate-rich northern provinces would be within
4429-721: The Haida Gwaii project, "scientists have seen no evidence that the experiment worked", concluded a 2017 article in Nature . Gal%C3%A1pagos Islands The Galápagos Islands ( Spanish : Islas Galápagos ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific , located around the Equator 900 km (560 mi) west of the mainland of South America . They form the Galápagos Province of
4532-591: The Planktos-owned, US-registered vessel Weatherbird II set sail, departing from Fort Lauderdale for an yet unknown location. Unbeknownst to the organizations attempting to put a halt to these operations, a change of plans had taken place, and instead of heading for Galápagos , the vessel set course on the Bermudas for a refueling stop, intending to cruise across the Atlantic and conduct the operation near
4635-643: The South Pacific Ocean, however. The Galápagos Archipelago consists of 7,880 km (3,040 sq mi) of land spread over 45,000 km (17,000 sq mi) of ocean. The largest of the islands, Isabela, measures 2,250 square miles (5,800 km ) and makes up close to three-quarters of the total land area of the Galápagos. Volcán Wolf on Isabela is the highest point, with an elevation of 1,707 m (5,600 ft) above sea level . The group consists of 18 main islands, 3 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets . The islands are located at
4738-586: The South Pacific that was discovered with a human population was Easter Island , whose Rapa Nui people are known to be Polynesian rather than South American. In 1572, the Spanish chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa claimed that Topa Inca Yupanqui , the second Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire , had visited the archipelago. There is, however, little evidence for this and many experts consider it
4841-502: The Spanish arrived in the 16th century. A 2016 reanalysis of Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold's archaeological sites rejected their conclusions. They found that—at all locations excavated by the 1952 survey—artifacts of Indian and European origin were interspersed without the distinct spatial or stratigraphic arrangement that would be expected from independent sequential deposition. (Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold had noted this in their original report while ignoring its implications.) Radiocarbon dates from
4944-517: The aforementioned locations established a geographic triangle of protection in charge of patrolling the Pacific for enemy submarines, and also provided protection for the Panama Canal . After the war, the facilities were given to the government of Ecuador. Today, the island continues as an official Ecuadorian military base. The foundations and other remains of the US base can still be seen as one crosses
5047-488: The archipelago have erupted 24 times between 1961 and 2011. The shape of these volcanoes is tall and rounded as opposed to wide and smooth in the Hawaiian Islands. The Galápagos's shape is due to the pattern of radial and circumferential fissure , radial on the flanks, but circumferential near the caldera summits. It is the circumferential fissures which give rise to stacks of short lava flows . The volcanoes at
5150-457: The chain are located in both the northern and southern hemispheres, with Volcán Wolf and Volcán Ecuador on Isla Isabela being directly on the equator. Española Island , the southernmost islet of the archipelago, and Darwin Island , the northernmost one, are spread out over a distance of 220 km (137 mi). The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) considers them wholly within
5253-705: The company announced to wind down its business due to “unanticipated events in the Canary Islands”. On 13 February 2008, the company announced that funds had run dry and all operations were being postponed indefinitely. In March, the Weatherbird II was sold to an oil exploration interest. In 2012, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation decided on conducting an 'ocean pasture restoration experiment' by spreading more than 100 tonnes of an iron-rich dirt-like substance over
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#17327652309975356-466: The continent to San Cristóbal Island a group of more than a hundred workers, and tried his luck at planting sugar cane. He ruled his plantation with an iron hand, which led to his assassination in 1904. In 1897, Antonio Gil began another plantation on Isabela Island. Over the course of a whole year, from September 1904, an expedition of the Academy of Sciences of California, led by Rollo Beck , stayed in
5459-413: The corporate world to come up with that about a person. Russ has one aim in life: he wants to try and make the planet a better place. That’s it. I don’t care what else you read." In May 2013, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation removed George as a director of the company and ended his employment. Russ George sued the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, its directors, and several others in 2014. In
5562-418: The crew observed the geology, plants, and wildlife on Floreana, Isabela, and Santiago before continuing on their round-the-world expedition on 20 October. The young naturalist Charles Darwin , primarily a geologist at the time, was struck by the many volcanic features they saw, later referring to the archipelago as "that land of craters". His study of several volcanic formations over the five weeks he stayed in
5665-827: The deep ocean. Critics allege violations of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the London Convention on the Dumping of Wastes at Sea which contain moratoriums on geoengineering experiments. Parties to the London Convention and London Protocol expressed grave concerns about this experiment. Romany M. Webb, Senior Fellow and Associate Research Scholar for the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School answered this way: “The parties to
5768-399: The eastern Pacific Ocean, 973 km (605 mi) off the west coast of South America. The majority of islands are also more broadly part of the South Pacific. The closest land mass is that of mainland Ecuador , the country to which they belong, 926 km (500 nmi) to the east. The islands are found at the coordinates 1°40'N–1°36'S, 89°16'–92°01'W. Straddling the equator, islands in
5871-494: The era who might provide future patronage. In 1793, during the early French Revolutionary Wars , the British captain James Colnett described the flora and fauna of Galápagos and suggested the islands could be used as a base for whalers operating in the Pacific. Colnett improved upon Cowley's chart, coining additional names although accidentally transferring Cowley's Charles Island from Española to Floreana. Whalers and maritime fur traders killed and captured thousands of
5974-410: The especially wet year of 1969 shows the variation of precipitation in different places of Santa Cruz Island : Most of the Galápagos is covered in semi-desert vegetation, including shrublands, grasslands, and dry forest. A few of the islands have high-elevation areas with cooler temperatures and higher rainfall, which are home to humid-climate forests and shrublands, and montane grasslands ( pampas ) at
6077-461: The experiment as well as leading to concerns whether the iron used would be contaminated by oils or impurities. Two days later, the vessel departed for the Canary Islands . The vessel was denied port entry in the Canary Islands by local authorities in December 2007, after which the vessel spent several days drifting about before heading northwards to the island of Madeira . Several days later,
6180-545: The fact that previous similar Experiments, like the EisenEx experiment conducted in November 2009 had shown that fertilizing the ocean with iron in this manner would especially promote the growth of a genus of microalgae known as Pseudo-nitzschia which in turn produces large quantities of Domoic acid , a potentially deadly neurotoxin which accumulates through the food chain. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported
6283-499: The first time since 2005. Lava flows made their way to the coastline, prompting the evacuation of about fifty nearby residents and restricting tourist access. The 18 main islands (each having a land area at least 1 km ) of the archipelago (with their English names) shown alphabetically: Mosquera is also home to one of the largest colonies of sea lions in the Galapagos, and there have been occasional orca whale sightings around
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#17327652309976386-431: The growing importance of ecotourism to the local economy , the airport modernized in the 2010s, using recycled materials for any expansion and shifting entirely to renewable energy sources to handle its roughly 300,000 visitors each year. The Galápagos or Galapagos Islands are named for their giant tortoises , which were more plentiful at the time of their discovery. The Spanish word galápago derives from
6489-432: The highest elevations. There are about 500 species of native vascular plants on the islands, including 90 species of ferns. About 180 vascular plant species are endemic. The islands are well known for their distinctive endemic species, including giant tortoises , finches , flightless cormorants , Galápagos lava lizards and marine iguanas , which evolved to adapt to islands' environments. Whether Polynesians or
6592-445: The iron enrichment he performed in 2012 off the coast of British Columbia. John Disney, President of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, made this statement on October 19, 2012: "Our project has generated a great deal of media attention both nationally and internationally. I want to tell you about the project, what we did, how we did it. This project was not entered into lightly. And we have complied with every necessary aspect of
6695-503: The island's highlands. The initial colonists who joined him were Ecuadorian soldiers—chiefly political prisoners —whose death sentences were commuted in exchange for their agreement to permanently settle the islands with their families. They were joined in October by additional artisans and farmers, bringing the population to about 120, at which point Villamil was formally made the area's first governor. Villamil's lieutenant governor
6798-430: The island. In 1946, a penal colony was established on Isabela Island, but it was suspended in 1959. Galápagos National Park was established in 1959, with tourism starting to expand in the 1960s, imposing several restrictions upon the human population already living on the island. However, opportunities in the tourism, fishing, and farming industries attracted a mass of poor fishermen and farmers from mainland Ecuador. In
6901-453: The islands in 1684 while sailing on John Cook 's Batchelor's or Bachelor's Delight and John Eaton 's Nicholas as they raided Peruvian shipping. One cargo captured that year was 7–8 tuns of quince marmalade , whose remains scattered pottery around the islands. Publishing the first thorough chart of the islands, Cowley coined the English names for 16 of the islands, chiefly honoring English royalty, nobles, and Jamaican officials of
7004-432: The islands led to several important geological discoveries, including the first correct explanation for how volcanic tuff is formed. Darwin noticed the mockingbirds differed between islands, though he thought the birds now known as Darwin's finches were unrelated to each other and did not bother labelling them by island. Acting as governor of the islands while Villamil was on the mainland, Nicholas Lawson met Darwin and
7107-522: The islands on 12 February 1832 while the voyage was ongoing. José de Villamil , the founder of the Ecuadorian Navy , led the push to colonize and settle the islands, gradually supplanting the English names of the major islands with Spanish ones. The United States built the islands' first airport as a base to protect the western approaches of the Panama Canal in the 1930s. After World War II , its facilities were transferred to Ecuador. With
7210-536: The islands their home. In 1972 a census in the archipelago recorded a population of 3,488. By the 1980s, this number had risen to more than 15,000 people, and in 2010 there were 25,124 people in the Galápagos. 2021 projected population was 40,685. Five of the islands are inhabited: Baltra , Floreana , Isabela , San Cristóbal , and Santa Cruz . Options for air travel to the Galápagos are limited to two islands: San Cristobal ( San Cristóbal Airport ) and Baltra ( Seymour Airport ). Private aircraft must use Baltra as it
7313-607: The islands to alleviate financial troubles at home. The US had repeatedly expressed its interest in buying the islands for military use as they were positioned strategically guarding the Panama Canal . Besides the United States, Japan , Germany and Chile also expressed interest in establishing bases in the islands at the turn of the century. Chile had previously acquired the Straits of Magellan and Easter Island for strategic reasons and lieutenant Gregorio Santa Cruz argued in 1903 that possessing an island in equatorial waters, like
7416-460: The islands' two main seasons. The archipelago is mainly characterized by a mixture of a tropical savanna climate and a semi-arid climate , transitioning to a tropical rainforest climate in the northwest. During the rainy season known as the garúa from June to November, the temperature near the sea is around 22 °C (72 °F), a steady cool wind blows from south and southeast, frequent drizzles ( garúas ) for days, and dense fog conceals
7519-829: The islands, seeking a simpler life. Descendants of the Norwegian Kastdalen family and the German Angermeyer still live on the islands. During World War II, Ecuador authorized the United States to establish a naval base in Baltra Island, and radar stations in other strategic locations. Baltra was established as a United States Army Air Force base. Baltra was given the name of "Beta Base" along with "Alpha Base" in Nicaragua and "Gamma Base" in Salinas (continental Ecuador). The Crews stationed at Baltra and
7622-410: The islands. During the warm season from December to May, the average sea and air temperatures rise to around 25 °C (77 °F), there is no wind at all, and the sun shines apart from sporadic strong downpours. Weather also changes as altitude increases on the larger islands. Temperature decreases gradually with altitude, while precipitation increases due to the condensation of moisture from clouds on
7725-615: The islands. The voyage became crucial in Darwin's development of his theory of evolution of species by natural selection , presented in the 1859 On the Origin of Species . The Englishman William Gurney became mayor of a new settlement on Chatham Island in 1844. In April 1888 USS Albatross , a Navy-crewed research vessel assigned to the United States Fish Commission , briefly touched eight islands in
7828-552: The islet. As is usual in the archipelago, the islet is shared by many seabirds, marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies and Sally Lightfoot crabs. Although the islands are located on the equator, the Humboldt Current brings cold water to them, causing frequent drizzles during most of the year. The weather is regularly influenced by the El Niño events, which occur every 3 to 7 years and bring warmer sea surface temperatures ,
7931-553: The knowledge of national authorities, was later described by a leading scientist at the Natural History Museum in London as "hav(ing) had a chilling effect on public trust and on research". In May, 2013, HSRC fired George, removing him as a director of the company, and appointed John Disney as interim CEO. On 15 July 2014, the oceanographic scientific data gathered during the project was made publicly available under
8034-684: The largely European expatriate residents at the time, which prompted the movies The Empress of Floreana and The Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden . Ecuadorian laws provided all colonists with the possibility of receiving twenty hectares each of free land, the right to maintain their citizenship, freedom from taxation for the first ten years in Galápagos, and the right to hunt and fish freely on all uninhabited islands where they might settle. The first European colonists to arrive were Norwegians who settled briefly on Floreana, before moving on to San Cristobal and Santa Cruz. A few years later, other colonists from Europe, America and Ecuador started arriving on
8137-530: The largest catch in Canadian history. Russ has claimed this to be definitive Proof of the success of the Experiment, despite claims that no definitive link between the experiment and the higher levels of the food chain (including Salmon) could be determined. Research conducted on 13 major iron-fertilization experiments in the open ocean since 1990 determined that the method is unproven; with respect to
8240-439: The maps of Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius around 1570. The first English captain to visit the Galápagos Islands was Richard Hawkins in 1593. Until the early 19th century, the archipelago was often used as a hideout by (mostly English) pirates who attacked Spanish treasure fleets carrying gold, silver, and supplies from Peru to Panama and Spain . The English pirate William Ambrosia Cowley thoroughly mapped
8343-428: The new whaling ground and the Galápagos Islands became a frequent stop for the whalers both before and after visiting what came to be known as the Offshore Grounds. This led to the establishment in the Galápagos Islands of a kind of unofficial "post office" where whaleships stopped to pick up and drop off letters as well as for provisioning and repairing. In October 1820, the whaleship Essex out of Nantucket stopped at
8446-477: The ocean governance before undertaking the work. I want to make very clear: we do not consider micronutrient replenishment of a naturally occurring substance to be pollution. We are using this for restoration purposes, to restore the salmon back to their rightful place in the Old Massey economy. We have created a great team, working to develop the knowledge that will allow us to have a sustainable future, and that
8549-542: The oceans with Ocean Pasture Restoration, or OPR, related projects, had this to say about OPR safety concerns: “In general, the claim that OPR may cause harmful algal blooms (HABs) and lead to closure of fisheries in coastal waters is completely unfounded. Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences report mentions that OPR does not pose a threat of HABs in the open deep ocean. I fully agree with this.” The Haida project, and all OPR projects, are only conducted in
8652-444: The older islands have disappeared below the sea as they moved away from the mantle plume, the youngest islands, Isabela and Fernandina , are still being formed. In April 2009, lava from the volcanic island Fernandina started flowing both towards the island's shoreline and into the center caldera. In late June 2018, Sierra Negra, one of five volcanoes on Isabela and one of the most active in the Galapagos archipelago, began erupting for
8755-485: The other hand agreed to sell Planktos Inc. to another company named Diatom Corp. which was renamed to Planktos Corp. to reflect this acquisition. The name change became effective March 7, 2007. In May 2007, Planktos Corp. announced their plans to dissolve 100 tons of iron over a 10 000 square kilometer area on the high seas near the Galápagos Islands , the first of six planned large-scale operations Planktos
8858-461: The precipitation over Charles Darwin Station on the southern coast of Santa Cruz was 249.0 mm (9.80 in), while on nearby Baltra Island the precipitation during the same month was only 137.6 mm (5.42 in). This is because Baltra is located behind Santa Cruz when the prevailing winds are southerly, causing more moisture to fall on the Santa Cruz highlands. The following table for
8961-544: The push to colonize and settle the islands before Ecuador's neighbors or the European empires could occupy them. He formed the Galapagos Settlement Company in mid-1831 and, with President Juan José Flores 's support, sent Col. Ignacio Hernández with a dozen craftsmen to begin the settlement on Charles Island —renamed "Floriana" in the president's honour—early the next year. Hernández conducted
9064-408: The range of United States Navy . Ecuador's staunch resistance to a US purchase or bases in the islands can be credited to Chilean diplomacy, which in turn was informally backed on this issue by Great Britain and Germany . In the 1920s and 1930s, a small wave of European settlers arrived in the islands. There occurred a series of unsolved disappearances on the island of Floreana in the 1930s among
9167-795: The region include the Northern Galápagos volcanic province between the archipelago and the Galápagos Spreading Center (GSC) 200 km (120 mi) to the north at the boundary of the Nazca plate and the Cocos plate . This spreading center truncates into the East Pacific Rise on the west and is bounded by the Cocos Ridge and Carnegie Ridge in the east. Furthermore, the Galápagos Hotspot
9270-482: The release was to increase plankton growth and there promote growth of fisheries and maybe also remove carbon from the atmosphere. Such interventions exist in a near legal vacuum. Critics of the Old Massett Haida project are claiming it violates international law, but this is simply not true. Mainly due to vigorous lobbying by a couple of small NGOs (the same ones now outraged at the Haida project), parties to
9373-464: The sites placed them in the post-Spanish era and preliminary paleoenvironmental analysis showed no disturbance older than 500 years before present , suggesting no evidence from the survey that the islands were visited prior to their Spanish discovery in 1535. The authors suggested that native artifacts found by Heyerdahl and Skjølsvold had probably been brought as mementos or souvenirs at the time of Spanish occupation. A 2008 report by archeologists from
9476-536: The six to survive the journey. In 1818, the Nantucket whaleship Globe under Captain George Washington Gardner discovered a "mother lode" of sperm whales some thousand miles west of the South American coast approximately at the equator. He returned to Nantucket in 1820 with more than 2,000 barrels of sperm whale oil and the news of his discovery. This led to an influx of whaleships to exploit
9579-441: The slopes. This pattern of generally wet highlands and drier lowlands affects the plant life on the larger islands. The vegetation in the highlands tends to be green and lush, with tropical woodland in places. The lowland areas tend to have arid and semi-arid vegetation, with many thorny shrubs and cacti and areas of barren volcanic rock. Some islands also fall within the rain shadow of others during some seasons. During March 1969,
9682-969: The stress from the 3rd syllable to the 2nd.) It is usually read / ɡ ə ˈ l æ p ə ɡ ə s / in British English and / ɡ ə ˈ l ɑː p ə ɡ ə s / in American English . The name is first attested as the Spanish/Latin hybrid Insulae de los Galopegos ("Islands of the Turtles") on the map of the Americas in Abraham Ortelius 's Theater of the Lands of the World ( Theatrum Orbis Terrarum ), first published in 1570. The islands were also previously known as
9785-534: The time, “There’s a ruckus going on over an experiment in ocean fertilization conducted off the coast of British Columbia in July and disclosed this week. The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, an enterprise of the Haida village of Old Massett, used a large fishing vessel to spread 100 tons of iron sulfate-rich dust on the ocean surface west of Haida Gwaii (or the Queen Charlotte Islands). The aim of
9888-551: The west end of the archipelago are in general, taller, younger, have well developed calderas, and are mostly composed of tholeiitic basalt , while those on the east are shorter, older, lack calderas, and have a more diverse composition. The ages of the islands, from west to east are 0.05 Ma for Fernandina, 0.65 Ma for Isabela, 1.10 Ma for Santiago, 1.7 Ma for Santa Cruz, 2.90 Ma for Santa Fe, and 3.2 Ma for San Cristobal. The calderas on Sierra Negra and Alcedo have active fault systems . The Sierra Negra fault
9991-518: Was Patrick Watkins , an Irish sailor who was marooned on the Floreana from 1807 to 1809. According to later accounts, Watkins managed to survive by hunting, growing vegetables and trading with visiting whalers before stealing a longboat from a whaling ship, impressing five of its crew as his "slaves", and navigating to Guayaquil on the Ecuadorian mainland. Watkins was the only one of
10094-473: Was becalmed in the Doldrums . They found the islands they visited uninhabited and so arid and barren that two men and ten horses died for lack of fresh water and the rest were forced to subsist on cactus pads . The ship left them unclaimed and unsettled. Berlanga, however, wrote a brief account of the islands, their condition, and their main wildlife for Charles V . The Galápagos Islands first appeared on
10197-418: Was in flames. Crewmembers reported that after a day of sailing away they could still see the flames against the horizon. One crewmember who returned to the Galápagos several years afterward described the entire island as still a blackened wasteland. Ecuador won its independence from Spain in 1822 and seceded from Gran Colombia in 1830. Gen. José de Villamil , the founder of the Ecuadorian Navy , led
10300-798: Was part of the crew of the Rainbow Warrior , though today he considers Greenpeace one of his greatest opponents. In the 90s, he founded several companies conducting Cold Fusion research. In the late 1980s, Russell embraced the idea of near limitless energy from the fusion of atoms after hearing of the Fleischmann–Pons experiment. Shortly after, in 1989, Darcy Russ George and Ronald A. Brightsen founded Clustron Science Corp. in Order to conduct Experiments regarding Cold Fusion themselves. In 1998, Russ George founded Saturna Technologies and eWorld Travel Corp. an Internet Travel Service Company, which
10403-502: Was planning to conduct in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean from 2007 to 2009. These plans caught the attention of the several NGOs, the first of which was the eco-justice ETC Group, which raised alarm about the large-scale geoengineering project. This in turn caused other organizations to take notice of Planktos Corp: The start of the operation was delayed by almost three months due to supply delays, but finally, on November 5, 2007,
10506-419: Was renamed to GYK Ventures Inc. in 2002, then renamed a second time to Diatom Corp. in 2005. In March 2005, he incorporated a company named D2Fusion Inc. which would supposedly produce and sell fusion-powered heating devices. In August 2005, George sold Planktos Inc. and D2Fusion Inc. to a Vancouver -based company named Solar Energy Ltd. for a stated value of $ 1.5 million and $ 2 million respectively. Solar on
10609-582: Was the Norwegian -born American and Chilean sailor and shipwright Nicholas Oliver Lawson . Haven of Peace was originally successful and peaceful but, after being named a penal colony in March 1833, violence and costs began to rise. Villamil was faced with bankruptcy by 1837 and resigned his post, founding a colony of 21 on Indefatigable Island —renamed Bolivia—and leaving Lawson as its mayor. Gen. Villamil's successors—incompetent, strict, or both—prompted
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