This book is the result of ten years' of scientific research carried out
by the authors on Isla de los Estados. The research includes their
doctoral thesis and many published scientific papers related to the
island.
The book is divided into two principal parts. The first part covers
different social and natural aspects of this remote island and includes
chapters on the scientific and historical background, physiography with
topographical and hydrographical descriptions, climate and oceanographic
circulation, vegetation and geology (including stratigraphy, structural
geology and geological history).
The second part comprises a reconstruction of the paleoenvironmental,
paleoclimatic and paleogeographic history of the island from the Last
Glacial Maximum to the present, correlating with other paleoecological
records from the southern part of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and
Patagonia. This second part also includes a geomorphological chapter
with a characterization of the principal erosive glacial landforms on
Isla de los Estados constructed by means of morphometric analysis,
inventories, maps, paleogeographic and glacial models, and a
paleoecological chapter evaluating the palaeoenvironment and
palaeoclimatic conditions that prevailed during the Late
Pleistocene-Holocene times based on pollen and diatom analysis from
three 14C-dated peat bogs and lakes. Finally, the book
concludes with a review of the island's archaeology and the relationship
between the palaeoenvironmental history and human occupation of this
island.
