Southampton Island
- Terra MODIS
- 23 July 2003
- 17:35 UTC
Situated at the northwestern entrance into Hudson Bay, just outside the Arctic Circle, Southampton Island is a large island of 41,214 km² in area — the ninth largest island of Canada's Arctic region. To the west, across the Roes Welcome Sound, lies the northwestern shore of Hudson Bay and to the north the southern sections of the Melville Peninsula. To the south, the Fisher Strait and Evans Strait look over to Coats Island and the open waters of Hudson Bay. The eastern coast of Southampton Island faces the Foxe Channel — leading to the Foxe Basin (to the north) and to the Hudson Strait (to the east). Southampton Island forms part of the Kivalliq region of Nunavut.
Southampton Island measures 340 km in length and is up to 355 km in width. Terrain is dominated by two distinct zones: a low, barren, and gently-sloping plain (with average elevations of less than 100 m above sea level) that covers much of the island and a mountainous area — part of the Precambrian Shield — in the north, running parallel to the coast (these upland areas are darker coloured and still retain a light dusting of snow cover in the above image). An abrupt escarpment divides these two regions, where the lake-filled plains suddenly rise over 100 m in height to the upland areas. A highest elevation of 625 m is reached at the unofficially named Mathiassen Mountain in the Porsild Mountains region. The eastern end of the island comprises the Bell Peninsula, formed where East Bay (on the north coast) and Native Bay (on the south) pinch the island's width to 20 km. The terrain of the Bell Peninsula has the same limestone based plains that are found to the west and south.
Immediately off the northern coast, across the narrow (as little as 1.1 km in width) Corner Strait, lies White Island — at 789 km² in area, it is by far the largest of the offshore islands.
image: MODIS rapid response project at nasa/goddard space flight center
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