Public Servants responsible for approving geographic place names in Antarctica are to have a comprehensive set of principles to assist them for the first time.
Mapping and Spatial Data Manager at the Australian Antarctic Division (ADD), Ursula Harris said the principles, drafted by a core group of the Standing Committee on Antarctic Geographic Information (SCAGI), took more than three years to complete.
“As there is no single Antarctic naming authority, nations operating in the region share the responsibility of place naming,” Ms Harris (pictured) said.
“These principles outline what are appropriate names and promote the concept of ‘one feature, one name’, ensuring new geographic locations have the same name, no matter what country you are from,” she said.
“More and more we see Antarctic nations collaborating in search and rescue and moving expeditioners around the continent, so having consistent names on maps is vital.”
Ms Harris said Antarctic place names were published collectively in the Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR).
She said that in the past, place names had been translated between different languages, but this could mean losing the history or personality of the name and did not necessarily make the name work on a map.
“If a country was referring to another country’s map, a translated name could look like a completely different place.”
Ms Harris said an example of this was one of the Svenners Islands, located 65km south west of Davis, called Skipsholmen.
“Skips and holmen are Norwegian words for ship and island respectively,” she said.
“Following the new principles, we would maintain the Norwegian Skips, but add the feature type in English, in this case Island, with the resulting name being Skips Island.”
Ms Harris said the principles would allow the history and personality of the name to be preserved, but prevented the same feature being confused on maps.
