Terra Firma Islands is a small group of islands lying 8 nautical miles (15 km) north of Cape Berteaux

Cape Berteaux

Cape Berteaux is a cape surmounted by a high rock peak between Mikkelsen Bay and Wordie Ice Shelf on the west coast of Graham Land. The French Antarctic Expedition under Charcot, 1908–1910, originally applied the name Berteaux to an island in essentially this position...

, off the west coast of Graham Land

Graham Land

Graham Land is that portion of the Antarctic Peninsula which lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names, in...

 in West Antarctica

West Antarctica

West Antarctica, or Lesser Antarctica, one of the two major regions of Antarctica, is the part of the continent that lies within the Western Hemisphere including the Antarctic Peninsula.-Location and description:...

. Roughly surveyed by the British Graham Land Expedition

British Graham Land Expedition

A British expedition to Graham Land led by John Lachlan Cope took place between 1920 and 1922. The British Graham Land Expedition was a geophysical and exploration expedition to Graham Land in Antarctica between 1934 to 1937. Under the leadership of John Riddoch Rymill, the expedition spent two...

 (BGLE) in 1936. The name "Terra Firma Island" was applied to the largest island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

 (Alamode Island

Alamode Island

Alamode Island , once known as Terra Firma Island, is the largest and southeasternmost of the Terra Firma Islands, with steep rocky cliffs surmounted by a rock and snow cone rising to , lying in Marguerite Bay off the west coast of Graham Land. First visited and surveyed by the British Graham Land...

, q.v.), because a BGLE depot-laying party camped there following the break-up of sea ice, but the name Terra Firma Islands was later applied to the whole group.