"text":"<p>American sailor John HEARD discovered Heard Island in 1853 and thought it was a glacier that had broken away from Antarctica. Fellow American William MCDONALD discovered the McDonald Islands the following year. Starting in 1855, sealers lived on the islands harvesting elephant seal oil; by the time the practice was ended in 1877, most of the islands’ seals were killed. The UK formally claimed the islands in 1910 and Australian explorer Douglas MAWSON visited Heard Island in 1929. In 1947, the UK transferred the islands to Australia for its Antarctica research, but Australia closed the research station on Heard Island in 1954 when it opened a new research station on the Antarctic continent. McDonald Island has been an active volcano since it emerged from dormancy in 1992, and the island doubled in size after an eruption in 1996. In 1997, the islands were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Populated by a large number of bird species, seals, and penguins, the islands are primarily used for research with limited fishing being permitted in the surrounding waters.</p> <p style=\"margin: 0in; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 18.0pt; background: white;\"></p>"
"text":"Heard Island - 80% ice-covered, bleak and mountainous, dominated by a large massif (Big Ben) and an active volcano (Mawson Peak); McDonald Islands - small and rocky"
"text":"Mawson Peak, an active volcano, is on Heard Island"
},
"Geography - note":{
"text":"Mawson Peak on Heard Island is the highest Australian mountain (at 2,745 meters, it is taller than Mt. Kosciuszko in Australia proper), and one of only two active volcanoes located in Australian territory, the other being McDonald Island; in 1992, McDonald Island broke its dormancy and began erupting; it has erupted several times since, most recently in 2005"
"text":"Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands"
},
"conventional short form":{
"text":"Heard Island and McDonald Islands"
},
"abbreviation":{
"text":"HIMI"
},
"etymology":{
"text":"named after American Captain John HEARD, who sighted the island on 25 November 1853, and American Captain William McDONALD, who discovered the islands on 4 January 1854"
"text":"territory of Australia; administered from Canberra by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (Australian Antarctic Division)"