Buckle Island is in the center of a 160-km-long chain of volcanic islands forming the Balleny Islands off the coast of Antarctica's Victoria Land. The islands are located at the southern end of a submarine ridge system that extends north to New Zealand, but is offset by the Indian-Antarctic ridge system. The elongated, 21-km-long island is capped by an gently sloping icecap that descends steeply to the sea between rocky cliffs. Dark eruption columns were reported during 1839 and 1899, but no detailed geological studies exist for the Balleny Islands volcanoes.