Kennedy Channel(Danish:Kennedykanalen;French:Passage Kennedy;80°55′N66°30′W/ 80.917°N 66.500°W) is anArcticsea passage betweenGreenlandandCanada's most northerly island,Ellesmere Island.
It was named byElisha Kanearound 1854 during his second Arctic voyage in search of thelost Franklin expedition.It is not entirely clear, however, for which Kennedy he named the channel. Kane may have had his fellow explorerWilliam Kennedyin mind, whom he had met a few years previously while both were involved in earlier searches for Franklin's expedition. However, most historians believe it was named forJohn Pendleton Kennedy,theUnited States Secretary of the Navyduring 1852 to 1853, under whose direction Kane's second Arctic voyage took place.
Geography
editIt forms part ofNares Strait,linkingKane BasinwithHall Basin.From the south, its beginning is marked by CapesLawrenceandJackson;its junction with Hall Basin is marked by CapesBairdandMorton.[1]It is about 130 kilometres in length, between 24 and 32 kilometres in width and averages water depths between 180 and 340 metres.
It containsHans Island,with an ownership shared between Canada and Denmark, because it is located close to the middle between the two coastlines, but about 1,000 meters closer to Greenland's coast. The channel also contains two more islands,Franklin IslandandCrozier Islandwhich are located much closer to the Greenland coast and therefore belong to Greenland.Hannah Islandis located at the mouth of theBessel Fjord,northeast ofCape Bryan.[1]
References
edit- National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency,Sailing Directions Enroute: Pub 181 Greenland and Iceland (Enroute),2002.
Further reading
edit- Dewing, Keith, J Harrison, Brian Pratt, and Ulrich Mayr. 2004. "A Probable Late Neoproterozoic Age for the Kennedy Channel and Ella Bay Formations, Northeastern Ellesmere Island and Its Implications for Passive Margin History of the Canadian Arctic".Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.41: 1013–1025.
- Kerr, J. William.Kennedy Channel and Lady Franklin Bay, District of Franklin.1973.
- Long, Darrel Graham Francis.Kennedy Channel Formation Key to the Early History of the Franklinian Continental Margin, Central Eastern Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada: Supplementary Unpublished Data.Canadian journal of earth sciences, v. 26, pp. 1147–1159, suppl. mat. 1989.