Middleton Island

[8] The island is thought to be only about 5,000 years old, having formed recently due to a continental shelf area that is subject to tectonic uplift.

The Federal Aviation Administration retains some 200 hundred acres in support of radar installations for weather and air traffic monitoring.

Middleton Island has the longest running time series of seabird monitoring of any Alaska breeding site.

It began in 1956, in anticipation of the Airforce base that would be built in 1958, when researcher Robert Rausch conducted the first floral and faunal survey of the island.

During the 1964 Alaska earthquake, the ground rose 12 feet (3.7 m), and the Coldbrook was left beached at high-tide and out of the pounding surf.

[11] The now 106-year-old rusting hull is home to thousands of nesting seabirds, which are studied by researchers at the Middleton Island Marine Biological Station.