1.
Coral Sea
–
The Coral Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an interim Australian bioregion. In the northwest, it reaches to the south coast of eastern New Guinea and it merges with the Tasman Sea in the south, with the Solomon Sea in the north and with the Pacific Ocean in the east. On the west, it is bounded by the mainland coast of Queensland, the sea is characterised by its warm and stable climate, with frequent rains and tropical cyclones. It contains numerous islands and reefs, as well as the worlds largest reef system, the Great Barrier Reef, all previous oil exploration projects were terminated at the GBR in 1975, and fishing is restricted in many areas. The reefs and islands of the Coral Sea are particularly rich in birds and aquatic life and are a popular tourist destination, both nationally and internationally. While the Great Barrier Reef with its islands and cays belong to Queensland, most reefs, in addition, some islands west of and belonging to New Caledonia are also part of the Coral Sea Islands in a geographical sense, such as the Chesterfield Islands and Bellona Reefs. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Coral Sea as follows, the parallel of 30° South to the Australian coast. The Eastern limit of the Arafura Sea and the East Coast of Australia as far south as Latitude 30° South, the sea has been an important source of coral for the Great Barrier Reef, both during its formation and after sea level lowering. The geological formation processes are proceeding, as partly evidenced by the seismic activity. Several hundred earthquakes with the magnitude between 2 and 6 were recorded in the period 1866–2000 along the Queensland coast and in the Coral Sea, on 2 April 2007, the Solomon Islands were struck by a major earthquake followed by a several metres tall tsunami. The epicentre of this magnitude 8.1 earthquake was 349 km northwest of Honiara and it was followed by more than 44 aftershocks of a magnitude 5.0 or greater. The resulting tsunami killed at least 52 people and destroyed more than 900 homes, the sea received its name because of its numerous coral formations. They include the GBR, which extends about 2,000 km along the northeast coast of Australia, the Chesterfield Islands and Lihou Reef are the largest atolls of the Coral Sea. Major Coral Sea currents form a counter-clockwise gyro which includes the East Australian Current and it brings warm nutrient-poor waters from the Coral Sea down the east coast of Australia to the cool waters of the Tasman Sea. This current is the strongest along the Australian coasts and transforms 30 million m3/s of water within a band of about 100 kilometres wide and 500 metres deep. The current is strongest around February and weakest around August, the major river flowing into the sea is the Burdekin River, which has its delta southeast of Townsville. Owing to the seasonal and annual variations in occurrence of cyclones and in precipitation and this irregularity results in concomitant fluctuations of the sea water composition near the river delta. The surface water temperature varies on the south of the sea from 19 °C in August to 24 °C in February and it is rather warm and stable at 27–28 °С in the north all through the year
Coral Sea
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Thermal profile of the East Australian Current
Coral Sea
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Coral Sea
Coral Sea
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Tropical Cyclone Larry over the Great Barrier Reef, 19 March 2006
Coral Sea
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Corals on Flynn Reef near
Cairns
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
Australia
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Aboriginal rock art in the
Kimberley region of Western Australia
Australia
Australia
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Portrait of Captain
James Cook, the first European to map the eastern coastline of Australia in 1770
Australia
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Tasmania's
Port Arthur penal settlement is one of eleven UNESCO World Heritage-listed
Australian Convict Sites.
3.
States and territories of Australia
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Australia is a federation of six states, together with ten federal territories. The Australian mainland consists of five of the six federated states, the state of Tasmania is an island about 200 kilometers from the mainland. The remaining seven territories are classified for some purposes as external territories, aside from the Australian Antarctic Territory, which is Australias claim to part of Antarctica, Australia is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area. Since 2015, federal control has also extended to the formerly self-governing territory of Norfolk Island. Three of the territories are inhabited, the others are uninhabited. The term geographic Australia is used by the Australian government to describe the area covered by demographic statistics such as national population figures and this area comprises Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands in addition to the six states and three mainland territories. Norfolk Island is the territory with a native population that is not part of geographic Australia. Both territories were reincorporated as the Northern Territory at the end of this period, from 1923 to 1968, the United Nations Trust Territory of Nauru was under Australian administration, until independence as the Republic of Nauru. From 1949 to 1975, the Territory of Papua and New Guinea was a territory of Australia, the states originated as separate British colonies prior to Federation in 1901. Upon Federation, the six colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, the territories, by contrast, are from a constitutional perspective directly subject to the Commonwealth Government, laws for territories are determined by the Australian Parliament. Most of the territories are directly administered by the Commonwealth Government, in the self-governing territories, the Australian Parliament retains the full power to legislate, and can override laws made by the territorial institutions, which it has done on rare occasions. For the purposes of Australian intergovernmental bodies, the Northern Territory, each state has a Governor, appointed by the Queen, which by convention she does on the advice of the state Premier. The Administrator of the Northern Territory, by contrast, is appointed by the Governor-General, Jervis Bay Territory is the only non-self-governing internal territory. Until 1989, it was administered as if it were a part of the ACT, although residents of the Jervis Bay Territory are generally subject to laws made by the ACT Legislative Assembly, they are not represented in the Assembly. They are represented in the Parliament of Australia as part of the Electoral Division of Fraser in the ACT, in other respects, the territory is administered directly by the Federal Government through the Territories portfolio. The external territory of Norfolk Island possessed a degree of self-government from 1979 until 2015, each state has a bicameral parliament except Queensland, which abolished its upper house in 1922. The lower house is called the Legislative Assembly, except in South Australia and Tasmania, Tasmania is the only state to use proportional representation for elections to its lower house, all others elect members from single member constituencies, using preferential voting. The upper house is called the Legislative Council and is elected from multi-member constituencies using proportional representation
States and territories of Australia
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Australian States and Territories
4.
Queensland
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Queensland is the second-largest and third-most-populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west, to the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean. Queensland has a population of 4,750,500, concentrated along the coast, the state is the worlds sixth largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 km2. The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane, Australias third largest city, often referred to as the Sunshine State, Queensland is home to 10 of Australias 30 largest cities and is the nations third largest economy. Tourism in the state, fuelled largely by its tropical climate, is a major industry. Queensland was first inhabited by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, the first European to land in Queensland was Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606, who explored the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula near present-day Weipa. In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain. The colony of New South Wales was founded in 1788 by Governor Arthur Phillip at Sydney, New South Wales at that time included all of what is now Queensland, Queensland was explored in subsequent decades until the establishment of a penal colony at Brisbane in 1824 by John Oxley. Penal transportation ceased in 1839 and free settlement was allowed from 1842, the state was named in honour of Queen Victoria, who on 6 June 1859 signed Letters Patent separating the colony from New South Wales. The 6th of June is now celebrated statewide as Queensland Day. Queensland achieved statehood with the Federation of Australia on 1 January 1901, the history of Queensland spans thousands of years, encompassing both a lengthy indigenous presence, as well as the eventful times of post-European settlement. The north-eastern Australian region was explored by Dutch, Spanish and French navigators before being encountered by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770, the Australian Labor Party has its origin as a formal organisation in Queensland and the town of Barcaldine is the symbolic birthplace of the party. June 2009 marked the 150th anniversary of its creation as a colony from New South Wales. The Aboriginal occupation of Queensland is thought to predate 50,000 BC, likely via boat or land bridge across Torres Strait, during the last ice age Queenslands landscape became more arid and largely desolate, making food and other supplies scarce. This led to the worlds first seed-grinding technology, warming again made the land hospitable, which brought high rainfall along the eastern coast, stimulating the growth of the states tropical rainforests. In February 1606, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of what is now Weipa and this was the first recorded landing of a European in Australia, and it also marked the first reported contact between European and Aboriginal Australian people. The region was explored by French and Spanish explorers prior to the arrival of Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of the United Kingdom on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming Eastern Australia, including Queensland, the Aboriginal population declined significantly after a smallpox epidemic during the late 18th century
Queensland
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Flag (1876-1901)
Queensland
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Flag
Queensland
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Great Barrier Reef, which extends along most of Queensland's coastline
Queensland
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A coral garden in
Osprey Reef
5.
Willis Island (Coral Sea)
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Willis Island is the only permanently inhabited island in the Coral Sea Islands Territory, an external territory of Australia, located beyond the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea. The island is located some 450 kilometres east of Cairns, Queensland and it is the southernmost of the Willis Islets, a group of three islands which with their associated sandy cays stretch in a NNE to SSW line for about 12 kilometres. Willis Island itself is aligned NW to SE and is about 500 metres long by 150 metres wide,7.7 hectares in area, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has a weather monitoring station on the island. There are usually four weather observers, one of whom is Officer-in-Charge, the Willis Island weather monitoring station was established in 1921 and equipped with a radio transmitter in order to provide a cyclone early warning service for Queensland. The first officer in charge was John King Davis, on 2 February 2011, sometime shortly after 08,30 AEST, the eye of Cyclone Yasi moved directly over Willis Island as a Category 5 tropical cyclone. Four station staff had evacuated the previous day. A wind gust speed of 185 kilometres per hour was recorded by the station equipment before the anemometer failed. The barometric pressure fell to an exceptionally low 937.9 hectopascals, around 9,00 am, radar data was disrupted. Roughly an hour later, communication with the island was cut off. The cyclone was so strong it altered the shape of the island, limited services were restored on 17 February 2011. A Bureau of Meteorology spokeswoman later said the building sustained minor damage to the roof, deck covering. The radome which protects the radar was destroyed and the radar itself sustained damage and needed to be replaced. The associated storm surge also damaged the generator, sewage system. Operation of the monitoring station was restored on 12 December 2011. Up to 2004 most of the constructed in either 1950 or 1968 still existed. Maintenance and refurbishment had been a costly process. Personal living accommodation was provided in a wing between the meteorological office and the kitchen-living room area. Meteorological equipment included a defined equipment enclosure and a seven metre high radar tower plus dome, other equipment included a desalination plant and enviro-cycle sewage treatment plant
Willis Island (Coral Sea)
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Aerial view of Willis Island in 2006
6.
Great Barrier Reef
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The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from space and is the worlds biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms and it supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the seven wonders of the world. The Queensland National Trust named it a icon of Queensland. A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, other environmental pressures on the reef and its ecosystem include runoff, climate change accompanied by mass coral bleaching, and cyclic population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. According to a study published in October 2012 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Great Barrier Reef has long been known to and used by the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is an important part of local groups cultures and spirituality. The reef is a popular destination for tourists, especially in the Whitsunday Islands. Tourism is an important economic activity for the region, generating over AUD$3 billion per year, in November 2014, Google launched Google Underwater Street View in 3D of the Great Barrier Reef. A March 2016 report stated that coral bleaching was more widespread than previously thought, in October 2016, Outside published an obituary for the reef, the article was criticized for being premature and hindering efforts to bolster the resilience of the reef. The Great Barrier Reef is a feature of the East Australian Cordillera division. It includes the smaller Murray Islands and it reaches from Torres Strait in the north to the unnamed passage between Lady Elliot Island and Fraser Island in the south. Lady Elliot Island is located 1,915 km southeast of Bramble Cay as the crow flies, the Plate tectonic theory indicates Australia has moved northwards at a rate of 7 cm per year, starting during the Cenozoic. Eastern Australia experienced a period of uplift, which moved the drainage divide in Queensland 400 km inland. Also during this time, Queensland experienced volcanic eruptions leading to central and shield volcanoes, some of these became high islands. The Great Barrier Reefs development history is complex, after Queensland drifted into tropical waters, it was influenced by reef growth. 10 million years ago, the sea level lowered, which further enabled sedimentation. The reefs substrate may have needed to build up from the sediment until its edge was too far away for suspended sediments to inhibit coral growth
Great Barrier Reef
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Satellite image of part of the Great Barrier Reef adjacent to the Queensland coastal areas of
Airlie Beach and
Mackay.
Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef
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The Great Barrier Reef is clearly visible from aircraft flying over it.
Great Barrier Reef
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Heron Island, a coral cay in the southern Great Barrier Reef
7.
Osprey Reef
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Osprey Reef is a submerged atoll in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Northwestern Group of the Coral Sea Islands, Osprey Reef is roughly oval in shape, measuring 25 by 12 kilometres, and covers around 195 square kilometres. It has a perimeter of 69.5 kilometres, the central lagoon is only 30 metres deep. The reef sits atop a seamount in deep water and it is an isolated location some 60 kilometres from other reefs. Schindleria brevipinguis, one of the worlds smallest fish, is found in the Osprey Reef lagoon, the reef has no intertidal or emerged sand cay. The surrounding waters are part of the South Equatorial Current, the reef is protected within the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve. A2009 expedition aimed to make discoveries in the parts of the reef between 92 and 800 metres below sea level. Relict fauna communities consisting of rock sponges, glass sponges, brachiopods, the reef has been described as the ultimate reef diving adventure. The reef is home to are large and colourful soft corals, list of reefs Media related to Osprey Reef at Wikimedia Commons
Osprey Reef
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Acropora coral garden with
giant clam at Raging Horn, Osprey Reef
8.
Guano
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Guano is the accumulated excrement of seabirds, seals, or cave-dwelling bats. As a manure, guano is an effective fertilizer due to its exceptionally high content of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium. During the twentieth century, guano-producing birds became an important target of conservation programs, today, guano is increasingly sought after by organic farmers. Seabird guano consists of nitrogen-rich ammonium oxalate and urate, phosphates, as well as some earth salts, the word guano originates from the Andean indigenous language Quechua, which refers to any form of dung used as an agricultural fertilizer. Archaeological evidence suggests that Andean people have collected guano from small islands, spanish colonial documents suggest that the rulers of the Inca Empire assigned great value to guano, restricted access to it, and punished any disturbance of the birds with death. The Guanay cormorant has historically been the most abundant and important producer of guano, other important guano producing species off the coast of Peru are the Peruvian pelican and the Peruvian booby. At that time, massive deposits of guano existed on some islands, in this context the United States passed the Guano Islands Act in 1856, which gave U. S. citizens discovering a source of guano on an unclaimed island exclusive rights to the deposits. Nine of these islands are still officially U. S. territories, control over guano played a central role in the Chincha Islands War between Spain and a Peruvian-Chilean alliance. Indentured workers from China played an important role in guano harvest, the first group of 79 Chinese workers arrived in Peru in 1849, by the time that trade ended a quarter of a century later, over 100,000 of their fellow countrymen had been imported. There is no evidence that enslaved Pacific Islanders participated in guano mining. Between 1847 and 1873, there was a significant increase in Peruvian guano exports, after 1870, the use of Peruvian guano as a fertilizer was eclipsed by saltpeter in the form of caliche extraction from the interior of the Atacama Desert, not far from the guano areas. Since 1909, when the Peruvian government took over guano extraction for use by Peru farmers, South Africa independently developed its own guano industry based on sustained-yield production from marine birds during this period, as well. Both industries eventually collapsed due to pressure from overfishing, DNA testing has suggested that new potato varieties imported alongside Peruvian seabird guano in 1842 brought a virulent strain of potato blight that began the Irish Potato Famine. The ideal type of guano is found in dry climates. Post-depositional decomposition and ammonia volatilization of penguin guano also plays an important role in the evolution of ornithogenic sediments in the cold, Bat guano is usually mined in caves and this mining is associated with a corresponding loss of troglobytic biota and diminishing of biodiversity. Guano deposits support a variety of cave-adapted invertebrates that rely on bat feces as their sole source of nutrition. The greatest damage caused by mining to caves with extant guano deposits is to the bat colonies themselves, bats are highly vulnerable to regular disturbance to their roosts. Some species, such as Phyllonycteris aphylla, have low fat reserves, many species will drop pups when in panic, with subsequent death, leading to a steady reduction in population
Guano
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The nest of the
Peruvian booby is made of almost pure guano.
Guano
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The
Guanay cormorant has historically been the most important producer of guano.
Guano
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Mining guano in the
Chincha Islands off the central coast of
Peru c. 1860.
Guano
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Advertisement for guano, 1884.
9.
Elizabeth Reef
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Elizabeth Reef 29°57′25″S 159°4′32″E is a coral reef in the Tasman Sea. The reef is separated by a deep pass, some 45 km wide, from nearby Middleton Reef. It is around 160 km from Lord Howe Island and 555 km from the New South Wales coast of Australia, the Environment, Sport and Territories Legislation Amendment Act 1997 included Elizabeth Reef in Australias Coral Sea Islands Territory. It is one of the southernmost platform reefs in the world and it measures 8.2 km by 5.5 km. Despite the relatively high latitude, a variety of flora and fauna exists on the reef and in the surrounding waters due to their location where tropical. At low tide most of the flat is exposed, at high tide only one cay is visible, Elizabeth Island, with a diameter of about 400 m. Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs form the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve managed by the Government of Australia under the Natural Heritage Trust. Surveys by the Australian Institute of Marine Science have highlighted healthy number of black cod Epinephelus daemelii, the survey in 2003 highlighted 111 species of coral and identified 181 species of fish. The total number of recorded fish species is 311 across several surveys, high numbers of Galapagos sharks Carcharhinus galapagensis were observed at the reef, which may indicate that the reef is a nursery. Sea cucumber, Holothuria whitmaei, were found in high numbers, while the 2003 survey found only small numbers of crown-of-thorns starfish, a survey in 2005 indicated that it was active. Both Elizabeth Reef and Middleton Reef have been the site of numerous shipwrecks, according to the National Shipwrecks Database, the ships stranded at Elizabeth Reef include, Britannia, Colonist, Douglas, Elizabeth, Naiad, Packet, Ramsay, Rosetta Joseph, and Tyrian. Britannia is listed for both Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs, british sailor Steve Landles was winched to a Royal Australian Navy Sea Hawk helicopter from the stranded yacht Lamachan on 2 August 2007, the yacht could not be recovered. Lord Howe Seamount Chain The Uncertainties of Middleton and Elizabeth Reefs
Elizabeth Reef
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Elizabeth Reef image from NASA Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project
10.
Middleton Reef
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Middleton Reef 29°27′28″S 159°7′7″E is a coral reef in the Tasman Sea. It is separated by a deep oceanic pass some 45 km wide from nearby Chan Reef and it is around 220 km from Lord Howe Island and 555 km from the coast of New South Wales. In 1997 the Environment, Sport and Territories Legislation Amendment Bill 1996 included the reef in Australias Coral Sea Islands Territory and it is among the southernmost platform reefs in the world. Despite its relatively high latitude, there is a variety of flora and fauna on the reef and in the surrounding waters, due to converging tropical. It is about 8.9 km long by 6.3 km wide, at low tide most of the reef flat is exposed, at high tide only one cay is visible, The Sound,100 m by 70 m and one metre above sea level. The reefs form the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve managed by the Government of Australia under the Natural Heritage Trust, surveys by the Australian Institute of Marine Science have highlighted healthy numbers of black cod Epinephelus daemelii, a threatened species in NSW waters. The survey in 2003 highlighted 111 species of coral and identified 181 species of fish, the number of recorded fish species is 311 across several surveys. High numbers of Galapagos sharks Carcharhinus galapagensis were observed at Elizabeth Reef, Sea cucumber, Holothuria whitmaei, were also found in high numbers at Elizabeth Reef. While the 2003 survey found only small numbers of crown-of-thorns starfish, along with Elizabeth Reef, the reef has been the site of numerous shipwrecks. Britannia is listed for both Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs, the yacht Sospan Fach was wrecked on Middleton Reef in 1974 and its crew of five were rescued after being stranded for six weeks. Elizabeth Reef Lord Howe Seamount Chain The Uncertainties of Middleton and Elizabeth Reefs
Middleton Reef
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Middleton Reef image from NASA Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project
11.
Tasman Sea
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The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about 2,000 kilometres across and about 2,800 kilometres from north to south, the sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who was the first recorded European to encounter New Zealand and Tasmania. The British explorer Captain James Cook later extensively navigated the Tasman Sea in the 1770s as part of his first voyage of exploration. The Tasman Sea is informally referred to in both Australian and New Zealand English as The Ditch, for example, crossing the Ditch means travelling to Australia from New Zealand, or vice versa. The diminutive term The Ditch used for the Tasman Sea is comparable to referring to the North Atlantic Ocean as The Pond, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Tasman Sea as follows, On the West. From the South East Rock to the North point of Three Kings Islands thence to North Cape in New Zealand, a line joining the South extreme of the foul ground off Cape Palliser and the Lighthouse on Cape Campbell. A line joining the Light on Waipapapa Point with East Head of Stewart Island, a line running from South West Cape, Stewart Island, through The Snares to North West Cape, Auckland Island, through this island to its Southern point. A line joining the Southern point of Auckland Island to South East Cape, the Tasman Seas mid-ocean ridge developed between 85 and 55 million years ago as Australia and Zealandia broke apart during the breakup of supercontinent Gondwana. It lies roughly midway between the continental margins of Australia and Zealandia, much of Zealandia is submerged, so the ridge runs much closer to the Australian coast than New Zealands. The first successful flight over the sea was accomplished by Charles Kingsford Smith later that year, the first person to row solo across the sea was Colin Quincey in 1977. The next successful crossing was completed by his son, Shaun Quincey in 2010. Axis naval activity in New Zealand waters Crossing the Ditch List of seas Media related to Tasman Sea at Wikimedia Commons
Tasman Sea
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Map of the Tasman Sea
Tasman Sea
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Location
Tasman Sea
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Smoke from the
Black Saturday bushfires crosses the southern Tasman Sea
12.
Lord Howe Island
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It is about 10 km long and between 0.3 and 2.0 km wide with an area of 14.55 km2, though just 3.98 km2 of that comprises the low-lying developed part of the island. Along the west coast there is a sandy semi-enclosed sheltered coral reef lagoon, most of the population lives in the north, while the south is dominated by forested hills rising to the highest point on the island, Mount Gower. The Lord Howe Island Group comprises 28 islands, islets and rocks, apart from Lord Howe Island itself the most notable of these is the volcanic and uninhabited Balls Pyramid about 23 km to the southeast of Howe. To the north lies the Admiralty Group, a cluster of seven uninhabited islands. On the return journey Ball sent a party ashore on Lord Howe Island to claim it as a British possession and it subsequently became a provisioning port for the whaling industry, and was permanently settled in June 1834. When whaling declined, the 1880s saw the beginning of the export of the endemic kentia palms. The other continuing industry, tourism, began after World War II ended in 1945, the islands standard time zone is UTC+10,30, or UTC+11 when daylight saving time applies. The currency is the Australian dollar, commuter airlines provide flights to Sydney, Brisbane, and Port Macquarie. UNESCO records the Lord Howe Island Group as a World Heritage Site of global natural significance, most of the island is virtually untouched forest, with many of the plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. The Lord Howe Island Act 1981 established a Permanent Park Preserve, the surrounding waters are a protected region designated the Lord Howe Island Marine Park. It appears that, prior to European discovery and settlement, Lord Howe Island was uninhabited, on the return journey of 13 March 1788 Ball observed Balls Pyramid and sent a party ashore on Lord Howe Island to claim it as a British possession. Numerous turtles and tame birds were captured and returned to Sydney, Ball named Mount Lidgbird and Balls Pyramid after himself and the main island after Richard Howe, First Earl Howe, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. Watercolour sketches of native birds including the Lord Howe woodhen, white gallinule, as the latter two birds were soon hunted to extinction these paintings are their only remaining pictorial record. Over the next three years the Supply returned to the several times in search of turtles and the island was also visited by ships of the Second. The American fleet numbered 675 ships and Lord Howe was located in a known as the Middle Ground noted for sperm whales. Between July and October 1791 the Third Fleet ships arrived at Sydney, whale oil was to become Australias most profitable export until the 1830s, and it was the whaling industry that shaped Lord Howe Islands early history. They left three men, George Ashdown, James Bishop and Chapman, who were employed by a Sydney whaling firm to establish a supply station, the men were initially to provide meat by fishing and by raising pigs and goats from feral stock. They landed with their Māori wives and two Māori boys, huts were built in an area now known as Old Settlement which had a supply of fresh water, and a garden was established west of Blinky Beach
Lord Howe Island
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Tall kentia palms (
Howea forsteriana) growing in the forest at Ned's Beach
Lord Howe Island
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Satellite image of the island
Lord Howe Island
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Lt Henry Lidgbird Ball, Commander of HMS Supply
Lord Howe Island
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The extinct white gallinule (
Porphyrio albus). A drawing made in May 1788 by
Arthur Bowes Smyth who was the surgeon aboard
Lady Penrhyn, a ship of the First Fleet heading for China on its return trip to England
13.
New South Wales
–
New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south and it has a coast line with the Tasman Sea on its east side. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state, New South Wales state capital is Sydney, which is also Australias most populous city. In March 2014, the population of New South Wales was 7.5 million. Just under two-thirds of the population,4.67 million. Inhabitants of New South Wales are referred to as New South Welshmen, the Colony of New South Wales was founded as a penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised a more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825, in addition, the colony also included the island territories of New Zealand, Van Diemens Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became New Zealand. However, the Swan River Colony has never administered as part of New South Wales. Lord Howe Island remains part of New South Wales, while Norfolk Island has become a federal Territory, as have the now known as the Australian Capital Territory. The prior inhabitants of New South Wales were the Aboriginal tribes who arrived in Australia about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, before European settlement there were an estimated 250,000 Aboriginal people in the region. The Wodi Wodi people are the custodians of the Illawarra region of South Sydney. The Bundjalung people are the custodians of parts of the northern coastal areas. The European discovery of New South Wales was made by Captain James Cook during his 1770 survey along the eastern coast of the Dutch-named continent of New Holland. In his original journal covering the survey, in triplicate to satisfy Admiralty Orders, Cook first named the land New Wales, however, in the copy held by the Admiralty, he revised the wording to New South Wales. After years of chaos and anarchy after the overthrow of Governor William Bligh, macquaries legacy is still evident today. During the 19th century, large areas were separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria. Responsible government was granted to the New South Wales colony in 1855, following the Treaty of Waitangi, William Hobson declared British sovereignty over New Zealand in 1840
New South Wales
–
286 kg (630 lb) gold nugget unearthed in 1872 from
Hill End during the Gold Rush
New South Wales
–
Flag
New South Wales
–
Japanese POW camp in Cowra, 1944, several weeks before the
Cowra breakout
New South Wales
–
A short-lived
South Maitland Railway (SMR) Railcar travelling between
Weston and
Abermain, 1962. The SMR is notable for being the second last system in Australia to use steam haulage.
14.
Canberra
–
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of 381,488, it is Australias largest inland city, the city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory,280 km south-west of Sydney, and 660 km north-east of Melbourne. A resident of Canberra is known as a Canberran, the site of Canberra was selected for the location of the nations capital in 1908 as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne, Australias two largest cities. It is unusual among Australian cities, being a planned city outside of any state, similar to Washington, D. C. in the United States. Following an international contest for the design, a blueprint by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin was selected. The Griffins plan featured geometric motifs such as circles, hexagons and triangles, the citys design was influenced by the garden city movement and incorporates significant areas of natural vegetation that have earned Canberra the title of the bush capital. Although the Australian Capital Territory is now self-governing, the Commonwealth Government retains some influence through the National Capital Authority, the Australian Armys officer corps is trained at the Royal Military College, Duntroon and the Australian Defence Force Academy is also located in the capital. The ACT is independent of any state to prevent any one state from gaining an advantage by hosting the seat of Commonwealth power, the ACT has voting representation in the Commonwealth Parliament, and has its own independent Legislative Assembly and government, similar to the states. Compared to the averages, the unemployment rate is lower. Property prices are high, in part due to comparatively restrictive development regulations. An 1830s map of the region by Major Mitchell indeed does mark the Sullivans Creek floodplain between two mountains as Nganbra. Nganbra or Nganbira could readily have been anglicised to the name Canberry, survey plans of the district dated 1837 refer to the area as the Canberry Plain. Although popularly pronounced /ˈkænbərə/ or /ˈkænbɛrə/, the pronunciation at its official naming in 1913 was /ˈkæn. brə/. Before white settlement, the area in which Canberra would eventually be constructed was seasonally inhabited by Indigenous Australians, archaeological evidence of settlement in the region includes inhabited rock shelters, rock paintings and engravings, burial places, camps and quarry sites, and stone tools and arrangements. Artefacts suggests early human activity occurred at some point in the area 21,000 years previously, European exploration and settlement started in the Canberra area as early as the 1820s. There were four expeditions between 1820 and 1824, white settlement of the area probably dates from 1823, when a homestead or station was built on what is now the Acton peninsula by stockmen employed by Joshua John Moore. He formally applied to purchase the site on 16 December 1826, on 30 April 1827, Moore was told by letter that he could retain possession of 1,000 acres at Canberry. The European population in the Canberra area continued to grow throughout the 19th century
Canberra
–
Canberra, with the old and new
Parliament House in the centre, viewed from
Mount Ainslie
Canberra
–
Blundells Cottage, built around 1860, is one of the few remaining buildings built by the first settlers of Canberra.
Canberra
–
The opening of
Parliament House in May 1927.
Canberra
–
Two of Canberra's best-known landmarks,
Parliament House and
Old Parliament House (foreground). Commonwealth Place runs alongside the lake and includes the International Flag Display.
Questacon is on the right.
15.
Royal Australian Navy
–
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the colonial navies were integrated into a national force. Originally intended for defence, the navy was granted the title of Royal Australian Navy in 1911. Britains Royal Navy continued to support the RAN and provided additional blue-water defence capability in the Pacific up to the years of World War II. Then, rapid expansion saw the acquisition of large surface vessels. In the decade following the war, the RAN acquired a number of aircraft carriers. Today, the RAN consists of 47 commissioned vessels,3 non-commissioned vessels, the current Chief of Navy is Vice Admiral Tim Barrett. The Commonwealth Naval Forces were established on 1 March 1901, two months after the federation of Australia, when the forces of the separate Australian colonies were amalgamated. As a result, the force structure was set at one battlecruiser. On 10 July 1911, King George V granted the service the title of Royal Australian Navy. The first of the RANs new vessels, the destroyer Yarra, was completed in September 1910, in this time the focus of Australias naval policy shifted from defence against invasion to trade protection, and several fleet units were sunk as targets or scrapped. By 1923, the size of the navy had fallen to eight vessels, following the outbreak of the Pacific War and the virtual destruction of British naval forces in south-east Asia, the RAN operated more independently, or as part of United States Navy formations. As the navy took on a greater role, it was expanded significantly and at its height the RAN was the fourth-largest navy in the world. A total of 34 vessels were lost during the war, including three cruisers and four destroyers, after the Second World War, the size of the RAN was again reduced, but it gained new capabilities with the acquisition of two aircraft carriers, Sydney and Melbourne. The RAN saw action in many Cold War–era conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region and operated alongside the Royal Navy and United States Navy off Korea, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Since the end of the Cold War, the RAN has been part of Coalition forces in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, operating in support of Operation Slipper and it was also deployed in support of Australian peacekeeping operations in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. The strategic command structure of the RAN was overhauled during the New Generation Navy changes, the RAN is commanded through Naval Headquarters in Canberra. The professional head is the Chief of Navy, who holds the rank of Vice Admiral, NHQ is responsible for implementing policy decisions handed down from the Department of Defence and for overseeing tactical and operational issues that are the purview of the subordinate commands
Royal Australian Navy
–
Collins class
Royal Australian Navy
–
Naval Ensign (1967–present)
Royal Australian Navy
–
Canberra class
Royal Australian Navy
–
Anzac class
16.
Fishing
–
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild, techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping. Fishing may include catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as molluscs, cephalopods, crustaceans, the term is not normally applied to catching farmed fish, or to aquatic mammals, such as whales where the term whaling is more appropriate. According to United Nations FAO statistics, the number of commercial fishermen. Fisheries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people in developing countries, in 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms, with an additional 7.4 kilograms harvested from fish farms. In addition to providing food, modern fishing is also a recreational pastime, Fishing is an ancient practice that dates back to at least the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period about 40,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of the remains of Tianyuan man, a 40. Archaeology features such as middens, discarded fish bones, and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival. During this period, most people lived a lifestyle and were, of necessity. However, where there are examples of permanent settlements such as those at Lepenski Vir. The British dogger was a type of sailing trawler from the 17th century. The Brixham trawler that evolved there was of a build and had a tall gaff rig. They were also sufficiently robust to be able to tow large trawls in deep water, the great trawling fleet that built up at Brixham, earned the village the title of Mother of Deep-Sea Fisheries. The small village of Grimsby grew to become the largest fishing port in the world by the mid 19th century, an Act of Parliament was first obtained in 1796, which authorised the construction of new quays and dredging of the Haven to make it deeper. It was only in the 1846, with the expansion in the fishing industry. The foundation stone for the Royal Dock was laid by Albert the Prince consort in 1849, the dock covered 25 acres and was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1854 as the first modern fishing port. The elegant Brixham trawler spread across the world, influencing fishing fleets everywhere, by the end of the 19th century, there were over 3,000 fishing trawlers in commission in Britain, with almost 1,000 at Grimsby. These trawlers were sold to fishermen around Europe, including from the Netherlands, twelve trawlers went on to form the nucleus of the German fishing fleet
Fishing
–
Stilts fishermen, Sri Lanka
Fishing
–
Fishing with nets, Mexico
Fishing
–
Stone Age
fish hook made from bone
Fishing
–
Painting of A Brixham trawler by
William Adolphus Knell. The painting is now in the
National Maritime Museum.
17.
Australian Capital Territory
–
The Australian Capital Territory is the federal district in the south east of Australia, enclaved within New South Wales. Its only city is Canberra, the city of Australia. The ACT also has a strip of territory around the southern end of the Beecroft Peninsula. The need for a territory was flagged by colonial delegates during the Federation conventions of the late 19th century. Section 125 of the Australian Constitution provided that, following Federation in 1901, the territory was transferred to the Commonwealth by the state of New South Wales in 1911, two years prior to the naming of Canberra as the national capital in 1913. The floral emblem of the ACT is the royal bluebell and the emblem is the gang-gang cockatoo. The economic activity of the Australian Capital Territory is heavily concentrated around Canberra and this trend continued into 2016, when the territory was ranked the third best performing out of all of Australias states and territories. There is a proportion of young adults in the region compared with other Australian states or territories. Approximately one-fifth of ACT residents were born outside of Australia, mainly in the United Kingdom, almost one-fifth speak a language other than English at home, the most common being Chinese. The ACT also has a strip of territory around the southern end of the Beecroft Peninsula. Apart from the city of Canberra, the Australian Capital Territory also contains agricultural land, small townships and communities located within the ACT include Williamsdale, Naas, Uriarra, Tharwa and Hall. There are a range of mountains, rivers and creeks in the Namadgi National Park. These include the Naas and Murrumbidgee Rivers, Canberra is noted for its warm to hot, dry summers, and cold winters with occasional fog and frequent frosts. Many of the mountains in the territorys south-west are snow-covered for at least part of the winter. Thunderstorms can occur between October and March, and annual rainfall is 623 mm, with rainfall highest in spring and summer, the highest maximum temperature recorded in the ACT was 42.8 °C at Acton on 11 January 1939. The lowest minimum temperature was −14.6 °C at Gudgenby on 11 July 1971, notable geological formations in the Australian Capital Territory include the Canberra Formation, the Pittman Formation, Black Mountain Sandstone and State Circle Shale. In the 1840s fossils of brachiopods and trilobites from the Silurian period were discovered at Woolshed Creek near Duntroon, at the time, these were the oldest fossils discovered in Australia, though this record has now been far surpassed. Other specific geological places of interest include the State Circle cutting, the oldest rocks in the ACT date from the Ordovician around 480 million years ago
Australian Capital Territory
–
Canberra, located in the northern end of the territory, is an entirely planned city.
Australian Capital Territory
–
Flag
Australian Capital Territory
–
The ACT Legislative Assembly building
Australian Capital Territory
–
ACT sign
18.
Liberal Party of Australia
–
The Liberal Party of Australia is a major political party in Australia. Founded in 1945 to replace the United Australia Party, the Liberal Party is one of the two parties in Australian politics, along with the Australian Labor Party. Except for a few periods, the Liberal Party and its predecessors have operated in similar coalitions since the 1920s. Internationally, the Liberal Party is affiliated to the International Democrat Union, the partys leader is Malcolm Turnbull and its deputy leader is Julie Bishop. Now the Turnbull Government, the party had been elected at the 2013 federal election as the Abbott Government which took office on 18 September 2013. At state and territory level, the Liberal Party is in office in two states, Will Hodgman Premier of Tasmania since 2014 and Gladys Berejiklian Premier of New South Wales since 2017. The party is in opposition in the states of Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the partys ideology has been referred to as liberal, conservative, liberal-conservative, and classically liberal. The Liberal Party tends to promote economic liberalism and cultural liberalism, two past leaders of the party, Sir Robert Menzies and John Howard, are Australias two longest-serving Prime Ministers. The Liberal Party has spent more time in government than any other federal Australian political party, the contemporary Liberal Party generally advocates economic liberalism. Historically, the party has supported a higher degree of protectionism and interventionism than it has in recent decades. However, from its foundation the party has identified itself as an anti-socialist grouping of liberals, strong opposition to socialism and communism in Australia and abroad was one of its founding principles. The partys founder and longest-serving leader Robert Menzies envisaged that Australias middle class would form its main constituency, in the 1970s a left-wing middle class emerged that no longer voted Liberal. In country areas they either compete with or have a truce with the Nationals, Menzies was an ardent constitutional monarchist, who supported the Monarchy in Australia and links to the Commonwealth of Nations. Today the party is divided on the question of republicanism, with some being republicans, the Menzies Government formalised Australias alliance with America in 1951, and the party has remained a strong supporter of the mutual defence treaty. Liberal leaders from Menzies to Malcolm Fraser generally maintained Australias high tariff levels, at that time the Liberals coalition partner, the Country Party, the older of the two in the coalition, had considerable influence over the governments economic policies. Socially, while liberty and freedom of form the basis of its beliefs. A West Australian Liberal, Ken Wyatt, became the first Indigenous Australian elected to the House of Representatives in 2010, the party has two factions, the conservative right and the moderate left. Both factions support the market and differ mainly over their level of social conservatism
Liberal Party of Australia
–
Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister 2015–present, Liberal leader 2008–09 and 2015–present
Liberal Party of Australia
–
Liberal Party of Australia
Liberal Party of Australia
–
Sir Robert Menzies, founder of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister 1939–41 (
UAP) and 1949–66
Liberal Party of Australia
–
Harold Holt, Prime Minister 1966–67
19.
Australian Senate
–
The Australian Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter I, there are a total of 76 senators,12 senators are elected from each of the six states and two from each of the two autonomous internal territories. Senators are popularly elected under the single vote system of proportional representation. As a result of proportional representation, the features a multitude of parties vying for power. Senators normally serve fixed terms, unless the Senate is dissolved earlier in a double dissolution. Following a double half the state senators serve terms ending on the third 30 June following the election with the rest serving three years longer. The term of the territory senators expires at the time as there is an election for the House of Representatives. The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act of 1900 established the Senate as part of the new system of government in newly federated Australia. From a comparative perspective, the Australian Senate exhibits distinctive characteristics. Unlike upper Houses in other Westminster system governments, the Senate is not a body with limited legislative power. Rather it was intended to play – and does play – an active role in legislation, the Constitution intended to give less populous states added voice in a Federal legislature, while also providing for the revising role of an upper house in the Westminster system. In practice, however, most legislation in the Australian Parliament is initiated by the Government and it is then passed to the Senate, which has the opportunity to amend the bill or refuse to pass it. In the majority of cases, voting takes place along party lines, since 2015, armed officers of the Australian Federal Police have been placed on duty to protect both chambers of the Federal Parliament. The system for electing senators has changed several times since Federation, the original arrangement involved a first-past-the-post block voting or winner takes all system, on a state-by-state basis. This was replaced in 1919 by preferential block voting, block voting tended to produce landslide majorities and even wipe-outs. For instance, from 1920 to 1923 the Nationalist Party of Australia had 35 of the 36 senators, and from 1947 to 1950, the Australian Labor Party had 33 of the 36 senators. From the 1984 election, group ticket voting was introduced in order to reduce a high rate of voting that arose from the requirement that each candidate be given a preference. As a result of the changes, voters may assign their preferences for parties above the line, or individual candidates below the line, both above and below the line voting now use optional preferential voting
Australian Senate
Australian Senate
–
Australian Senate
Australian Senate
–
Entrance to the Senate
20.
Eric Abetz
–
Eric Abetz is an Australian politician and a Liberal Party member of the Australian Senate since February 1994, representing the state of Tasmania. Abetz was the Minister for Employment and the Leader of the Government in the Senate in the Abbott Government from 2013 to 2015. He previously also served as a Special Minister of State in the Howard Government, from 2001 to 2006 and as Minister for Fisheries, Forestry, born in Germany, Abetz emigrated to Australia as a small child, when his father came to work for Tasmanias Hydro Electric Commission. He was educated at the University of Tasmania and was a barrister, a former national president of the Australian Liberal Students Federation, he was state president of the Tasmanian branch of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1994. The youngest of six children, Abetz emigrated from Germany to Australia with his parents in 1961 and his father, a radio technician, came to Australia to work for Tasmanias Hydro Electric Commission, which had advertised for skilled workers in German newspapers. Another one of the Abetz children is Peter Abetz, who was the Liberal member for Southern River in the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia from the 2008 state election until 2017, eric Abetz was about 3 months old when Otto Abetz died. Abetz studied at Taroona High School, Hobart Matriculation College and the University of Tasmania, earning degrees in law and he won preselection as a candidate for the Senate in the 1993 election but did not win a seat. He was then chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Brian Archer in 1994. Abetz was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence 1998–2001 and was Special Minister of State from January 2001 until 2006. He has served as Chairman of the Native Title and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land Fund Committee and he also served as Chairman of the Attorney-General and Justice Government Members Committee. He was a member of a Parliamentary Delegation which visited France and Belgium in June and July 1997 and he was Minister for Forestry from a reshuffle of the Howard ministry in January 2006 until its defeat at the 2007 election. He commenced his portfolio by attacking the Australian Greens and environmentalists in general as anti-Australian and he described the campaign against woodchipping as akin to treason and branded the Greens an extreme left party. This allowed him to position the governments priorities as mainstream issues which both parties wanted action on. Abetz also designed and implemented the Governments Jobactive Employment Services Reforms, Abetz is a Christian and a member of the Christian Reformed Churches of Australia. Abetz is quoted as saying of Joe de Bruyn, National President of Labors largest trade union and he is the type of official that gives trade unionism a good name. In August 2014 Abetz received criticism from the media and politicians such as Greens Adam Bandt for making claims of a link between abortion and breast cancer when appearing on The Project and he had been on The Project to discuss his association with the World Congress of Families. Abetz read out the text of what he said was an email, on 4 August 2009, Grech admitted that he had forged the email. Abetz then issued an apology, saying, I am not only sorry to Malcolm Turnbull but to the Australian people and any anguish that may have been occasioned to Kevin Rudd and other people
Eric Abetz
–
Senator The Honourable Eric Abetz
Eric Abetz
–
Abetz earlier in his political career.
Eric Abetz
–
Cabinet
21.
Mathias Cormann
–
Mathias Hubert Paul Cormann is an Australian-Belgian politician born in the German-speaking part of Belgium. He is a Liberal senator for Western Australia, having been chosen by the Parliament of Western Australia on 19 June 2007 to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Ian Campbell. He was re-elected to the Senate in 2010 and in 2016, Cormann has been the Minister for Finance, first in the Abbott Government and then in the Turnbull Government, since 18 September 2013. Born in the German-speaking town of Eupen in eastern Belgium, Cormann graduated with a Bachelor of Law degree from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. As part of his university studies Cormann participated in a student exchange program at the University of East Anglia in Norwich in 1993–94. At the age of 21, he became a councillor in his local area with the Christian Social Party, following a visit to Perth in 1994, he migrated to Australia permanently. Aged 21, Cormann joined the Christlich Soziale Partei in Raeren, from 1994 to 1996, Cormann served as an assistant to Member of the European Parliament Mathieu Grosch. He joined the Liberal Party in Western Australia and took on a job as ministerial chief-of-staff, then senior adviser to then-Premier of Western Australia and he then moved to federal politics, working for two years as a senior adviser to then Minister for Justice and Customs Chris Ellison. Between 2003 and 2008, Cormann was the state senior vice-president of the Liberal Party in Western Australia and he was also acting general manager of HBF, a WA-based health insurance company, until resigning in May 2007 to contest a Senate seat. On the ABCs Stateline program on 27 April 2007, Lightfoot stated that he considered Cormann an inappropriate person to replace him, lightfoots main complaint was that there were more appropriate people to succeed him who have served the party longer and who have been in the country longer. When Senator Ian Campbell unexpectedly announced his resignation on 4 May 2007. Campbell formally resigned on 31 May 2007, Cormann was sworn in on 20 June 2007 and served the remaining four years of Ian Campbells term until 2011. On 21 August 2010 Cormann was re-elected for a further term as Senator for Western Australia. In the Senate he chaired the Fuel and Energy Select Committee, Cormann personally opposes same-sex marriage, and is pushing for a postal vote plebiscite to be held before a parliamentary vote on the issue. Cormann, a Roman Catholic, is married to Hayley, a lawyer, Australian Senate biography Mathias Cormanns Personal official website Cormann, Mathias. Mathias Cormann, A tale of two lives, originally published in the Australian Financial Review. Summary of parliamentary voting for Senator Mathias Cormann on TheyVoteForYou. org. au
Mathias Cormann
–
Senator The Honourable Mathias Cormann
Mathias Cormann
–
Cabinet
Mathias Cormann
22.
Reef
–
A reef is a bar of rock, sand, coral or similar material, lying beneath the surface of water. Reefs may be up to 261 feet below the surface, artificial reefs such as shipwrecks are sometimes created to enhance physical complexity on generally featureless sand bottoms in order to attract a diverse assemblage of organisms, especially fish. There is a variety of reef types, including oyster reefs. These biotic reef types take on additional names depending upon how the reef lies in relation to the land, Reef types include fringing reef, barrier reefs, as well as atolls. A fringing reef is a reef that is attached to an island, a barrier reef forms a calcareous barrier around an island resulting in a lagoon between the shore and the reef. An atoll is a reef with no land present. The reef front is a high energy locale whereas the internal lagoon will be at an energy with fine grained sediments. One useful definition distinguishes reefs from mounds as follows, reefs are held up by a macroscopic skeletal framework. Coral reefs are an excellent example of this kind, corals and calcareous algae grow on top of one another and form a three-dimensional framework that is modified in various ways by other organisms and inorganic processes. By contrast, mounds lack a macroscopic skeletal framework, mounds are built by microorganisms or by organisms that dont grow a skeletal framework. A microbial mound might be built exclusively or primarily by cyanobacteria, excellent examples of biostromes formed by cyanobacteria occur in the Great Salt Lake of Utah, and in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Cyanobacteria do not have skeletons and individuals are microscopic, cyanobacteria encourage the precipitation or accumulation of calcium carbonate and can produce distinct sediment bodies in composition that have relief on the seafloor. Cyanobacterial mounds were most abundant before the evolution of shelly macroscopic organisms, bryozoans and crinoids, common contributors to marine sediments during the Mississippian, produced a very different kind of mound. Bryozoans are small and the skeletons of crinoids disintegrate, however, bryozoan and crinoid meadows can persist over time and produce compositionally distinct bodies of sediment with depositional relief. The Proterozoic Belt Supergroup contains evidence of microbial mat and dome structures similar to stromatolite reef complexes. Ancient reefs buried within stratigraphic sections are of considerable interest to geologists because they provide information about the location in Earths history. Corals, including some major extinct groups Rugosa and Tabulata, have been important reef builders through much of the Phanerozoic since the Ordovician Period. However, other groups, such as calcifying algae, especially members of the red algae Rhodophyta
Reef
–
Pamalican island with surrounding reef,
Sulu Sea,
Philippines.
Reef
–
A reef surrounding an
islet.
Reef
–
Archeocyathids, the first reef building organisms, from the
Poleta formation in the
Death Valley area
Reef
–
Reefs off
Vanatinai in the
Louisiade Archipelago.
23.
Atoll
–
An atoll, sometimes called a coral atoll, is a ring-shaped coral reef including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands/cays on the rim, the coral of the atoll often sits atop the rim of an extinct seamount or volcano which has eroded or subsided partially beneath the water. The lagoon forms over the crater or caldera while the higher rim remains above water or at shallow depths that permit the coral to grow. For the atoll to persist, continued erosion or subsidence must be at a slow enough to permit reef growth upwards and outwards to replace the lost height. The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu, meaning an administrative subdivision, the distribution of atolls around the globe is instructive, most of the worlds atolls are in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean has no large groups of atolls, other than eight atolls east of Nicaragua that belong to the Colombian department of San Andres and Providencia in the Caribbean. Reef-building corals will thrive only in tropical and subtropical waters of oceans and seas. The northernmost atoll of the world is Kure Atoll at 28°24 N, the southernmost atolls of the world are Elizabeth Reef at 29°58 S, and nearby Middleton Reef at 29°29 S, in the Tasman Sea, both of which are part of the Coral Sea Islands Territory. The next southerly atoll is Ducie Island in the Pitcairn Islands Group, at this latitude coral reefs would not develop without the warming waters of the Gulf Stream. However, Bermuda is termed a pseudo-atoll because its general form, while there is no atoll directly on the equator, the closest atoll to the Equator is Aranuka of Kiribati, with its southern tip just 12 km north of the equator. In most cases, the area of an atoll is very small in comparison to the total area. Atoll islands are low lying, with their elevations less than 5 meters, measured by total area, Lifou is the largest raised coral atoll of the world, followed by Rennell Island. More sources however list as the largest atoll in the world in terms of land area Kiritimati, the remains of an ancient atoll as a hill in a limestone area is called a reef knoll. The second largest atoll by dry land area is Aldabra with 155 km², the largest atoll in terms of island numbers is Huvadhu Atoll in the south of the Maldives with 255 islands. In 1842, Charles Darwin explained the creation of coral atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean based upon observations made during a voyage aboard the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. In time, subsidence carries the old volcano below the ocean surface, at this point, the island has become an atoll. Atolls are the product of the growth of marine organisms. Volcanic islands located beyond the water temperature requirements of hermatypic organisms become seamounts as they subside and are eroded away at the surface
Atoll
–
Satellite picture of the
Atafu atoll in
Tokelau in the Pacific Ocean
Atoll
–
NASA satellite image of some of the
atolls of the Maldives, which consists of 1,322 islands arranged into 26 atolls.
Atoll
–
Nukuoro from space. Courtesy
NASA.
Atoll
–
Aerial view of
Bora Bora
24.
Lihou Reef National Nature Reserve
–
Lihou Reef and its cays were discovered by Lieutenant John Lihou, R. N. on 23 February 1823. Lihou, then Master of the brig-sloop HMS Zenobia, was on passage from Manila to South America, after a hazardous passage through the reef, the ship departed the Great Barrier Reef via an opening near Murray Islands. On 23 February, the Lihou Reefs were sighted, Lihou Reef is the second largest atoll by total size in the Coral Sea, after the Chesterfield Islands. It is U-shaped, with an opening in the south-west, the size of the lagoon is about 100 by 30 km, with an area of 2529 km², making the atoll one of the largest in the world. Nevertheless, the land area of the islets and cays is little more than a square kilometre. The lagoon is up to 60 m deep, the reserve contains 18 islets and cays,9 each on the Northern Rim and the Southern Rim, ranging in size from 5,000 to 168,000 m². Turtle Islet reaches a height of 6 m, and Observatory Cay 2 m, there is an automatic weather station on Turtle Islet. Just Northeast of Anne Cay is the Herald Passage into the lagoon, more pictures at the Wayback Machine
Lihou Reef National Nature Reserve
–
NASA picture of the Lihou Reef
25.
Lagoon
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A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by barrier islands or reefs. Lagoons are commonly divided into coastal lagoons and atoll lagoons and they have also been identified as occurring on mixed-sand and gravel coastlines. There is an overlap between bodies of water classified as coastal lagoons and bodies of water classified as estuaries, lagoons are common coastal features around many parts of the world. Lagoons can also be man-made and used for treatment, as is the case for e. g. aerated lagoons. Lagoons are shallow, often elongated bodies of water separated from a body of water by a shallow or exposed shoal, coral reef. Some authorities include fresh water bodies in the definition of lagoon, the distinction between lagoon and estuary also varies between authorities. Richard A. Davis Jr. restricts lagoon to bodies of water with little or no fresh water inflow, and little or no tidal flow, Davis does state that the terms lagoon and estuary are often loosely applied, even in scientific literature. Timothy M. Kusky characterizes lagoons as normally being elongated parallel to the coast, while estuaries are usually drowned river valleys, coastal lagoons are classified as inland bodies of water. Many lagoons do not include lagoon in their common names, in England, The Fleet at Chesil Beach has also been described as a lagoon. In Latin America, the term laguna in Spanish, which translates to. However, sometimes it is used to describe a full-sized lake, such as Laguna Catemaco in Mexico. The brackish water lagoon may be explicitly identified as a coastal lagoon. In Portuguese the same usage is found, lagoa may be a body of sea water. Lagoon is derived from the Italian laguna, which refers to the waters around Venice, Laguna is attested in English by at least 1612, and had been Anglicized to lagune by 1673. In 1697 William Dampier referred to a Lagune or Lake of Salt water on the coast of Mexico, captain James Cook described an island of Oval form with a Lagoon in the middle in 1769. Atoll lagoons form as coral reefs grow upwards while the islands that the reefs surround subside, unlike the lagoons that form shoreward of fringing reefs, atoll lagoons often contain some deep portions. Coastal lagoons form along gently sloping coasts where barrier islands or reefs can develop off-shore, coastal lagoons do not form along steep or rocky coasts, or if the range of tides is more than 4 metres. Due to the slope of the coast, coastal lagoons are shallow
Lagoon
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Balos coastal lagoon of northwestern
Crete. The shallow lagoon is separated from the Mediterranean sea by narrow shoals connecting to a small, rocky mountain.
Lagoon
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Garabogaz-Göl lagoon in
Turkmenistan
Lagoon
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Coastal lagoon landscapes around the island of
Hiddensee near
Stralsund,
Germany. Many similar coastal lagoons can be found around the
Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park.
Lagoon
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Aerial photograph of the Rakaia river-mouth and associated hapua
26.
Willis Islets
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The only inhabited island is Willis Island. The Coral Sea Islands were first charted in 1803, in the 1870s and 1880s the islands were mined for guano but the absence of a reliable supply of fresh water prevented long-term habitation. The two latter reefs are closer to Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, than to the southernmost island of the rest of the territory. The islands, cays and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not part of the territory, the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef is the boundary between Queensland and the Coral Sea Islands Territory. The territory is a possession or external territory of Australia, administered from Canberra by the Attorney-Generals Department, defence is the responsibility of Australia, and the territory is visited regularly by the Royal Australian Navy. Australia maintains automatic weather stations on many of the isles and reefs, there is no economic activity, and only a staff of three or four people to run the meteorological station on Willis Island, established in 1921. In November 2011 the Australian government announced that a 989, 842-square-kilometre protected area was planned in the Coral Sea, as applicable, the laws of the Australian Capital Territory apply on the Coral Sea Islands. The territorys FIPS 10-4 code is CR, whereas ISO3166 includes it in Australia, the islands are all very low. The Willis Islets are important nesting areas for birds and turtles and they comprise less than three square kilometres of land. There is no port or harbour, only offshore anchorage, the formation sits atop a submarine feature known as the Marion Plateau which is separated from the larger Coral Sea Plateau to the north by the Townsville Trough. Three small sand cays are located on the side of Marion Reef, Paget Cay, on Long Reef, Carola Cay, south of Long Reef. The atolls of the Northwestern Group, except Osprey Reef and Shark Reef in the north, and Marion Reef in the south, are located on the Coral Sea Plateau, flinders Reefs, Heralds Surprise and Dart Reef form a cluster of reefs of 66 by 26 km. The 6 islets of the reserve have areas from 0.16 to 0.37 km2. Lihou Reef was declared a Nature Reserve on 16 August 1982, the Nature Reserves were created to protect wildlife in the respective areas of the territory, together they form the Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site. It has the outline of a platform around 10 km in length and 3 km across. The surrounding reefs, which enclose a narrow lagoon, are submerged at high tide. Near the centre of the lagoon is the only permanent land of the reef - Heralds-Beacon Islet, the island is a small cay measuring 600 m by 120 m, area 57,000 m2, only rising a few ms above the high-water mark. Frederick Reefs, The reefs form a lagoon, known as Anchorage Sound
Willis Islets
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Stony corals
Willis Islets
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Coral Sea Islands Territory
27.
Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve
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Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve is a former nature reserve in Australia’s Coral Sea Islands Territory that was incorporated into the new Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve in December 2012. The former nature reserve together with the Lihou Reef National Nature Reserve is part of the Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site and its extent is also within the Coringa-Herald Reefs Important Bird Area. The reserve lies to the east of the Great Barrier Reef and covers an area of 8,860 km2, most of which is open water. The pairs rise steeply from separate platform reef systems, each representing a stage in reef formation, varying in size from 16 to 37 ha. Each cay has a reef that is fully exposed to the influences of ocean currents. The islets are formed of sand, rocks and coral rubble. South-East Magdelaine Cay is the largest, parts of it, as well as North-East Herald Cay, have thick forests of Pisonia grandis, apart from North-West Magdelaine Islet which lacks vegetation, grasses and Heliotropium foertherianum shrubs grow on the other islets. The 124 ha land area of the cays has been recognised by BirdLife International as the Coringa-Herald Reefs IBA because of its importance as a site for seabirds. It supports over 1% of the populations of wedge-tailed shearwaters, red-footed boobies, lesser frigatebirds, red-tailed tropicbirds. Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve and Lihou Reef National Nature Reserve, Management Plan, archived from the original on 2007-09-09
Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve
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The IBA supports over 3000 breeding pairs of red-footed boobies
28.
Cairns
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Cairns is a major city on the east coast of Far North Queensland in Australia. The city is the 5th-most-populous in Queensland and ranks 14th overall in Australia, Cairns was founded in 1876 and named after William Wellington Cairns, Governor of Queensland from 1875 to 1877. It was formed to serve miners heading for the Hodgkinson River goldfield and it later developed into a railhead and major port for exporting sugar cane, gold and other metals, minerals and agricultural products from surrounding coastal areas and the Atherton Tableland region. The estimated residential population of the Cairns urban area in 2015 was 147,993, based on 2015 data, the associated local government area has experienced an average annual growth rate of 2. 3% over the last 10 years. Cairns is a popular tourist destination because of its climate and access to the Great Barrier Reef. Prior to British settlement, the Cairns area was inhabited by the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji people, the area is known in the local Yidiny language as Gimuy. In 1770, James Cook mapped the site of Cairns. Closer investigation by several official expeditions 100 years later established its potential for development into a port, Cairns was founded in 1876, hastened by the need to export gold discovered on the tablelands to the west of the inlet. The site was predominantly mangrove swamps and sand ridges, labourers gradually cleared the swamps, and the sand ridges were filled with dried mud, sawdust from local sawmills, and ballast from a quarry at Edge Hill. Debris from the construction of a railway to Herberton on the Atherton Tableland, the railway opened up land later used for agriculture on the lowlands, and for fruit and dairy production on the Tableland. The success of local agriculture helped establish Cairns as a port, on 25 April 1926, the Cairns Sailors and Soldiers War Memorial was unveiled by Alexander Frederick Draper, the mayor of the City of Cairns. Combat missions were flown out of Cairns in support of the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942, Edmonton and White Rock south of Cairns were major military supply areas and US Paratroopers trained at Gordonvale and the Goldsborough Valley. A Special Forces training base was established at the old Fairview homestead on Munros Hill and this base was officially known as the Z Experimental Station, but referred to informally as The House on the Hill. After World War II, Cairns gradually developed into a centre for tourism, the opening of the Cairns International Airport in 1984 helped establish the city as a desirable destination for international tourism. Cairns is located on the east coast of Cape York Peninsula on a strip between the Coral Sea and the Great Dividing Range. The northern part of the city is located on Trinity Bay, to the south of the Trinity Inlet lies the Aboriginal community of Yarrabah. Some of the suburbs are located on flood plains. The Mulgrave River and Barron River flow within the greater Cairns area, the citys centre foreshore is located on a mud flat
Cairns
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Cairns
Cairns
Cairns
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Skyrail Rainforest Cableway over the rainforest.
Cairns
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Cairns War Memorial, circa 1936
29.
Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site
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The existence of the islands and cays within the two reserves has been known to navigators since the early nineteenth century. Lihou Reef was named after Captain John Lihou of HMS Zenobia, the Coringa Islets were named after the cargo ship Coringa Packet, which foundered off Chilcott Islet in 1845. The Herald Cays were named after HMS Herald, which conducted hydrographic surveys in the Coral Sea, under the captaincy of Henry Mangles Denham, during the 1960s many of the islands and reefs in the Territory were visited by scientific survey parties. The site was designated as a wetland of importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. It was listed on 21 October 2002 as Ramsar Site 1222, Lihou Reef NNR lies to the south-east of the Coringa-Herald NNR and is separated from it by about 100 km of open sea. Several of the site’s 24 islets provide undisturbed sandy beach habitat for nesting turtles, as well as forest and shrubland supporting breeding populations of terns. Its coral reefs support a community of marine benthic plants and animals, a diverse decapod crustacean and hydroid fauna. The only breeding landbirds in the site are the purple swamphen, among the 14 species of seabird recorded as breeding in the site are the lesser frigatebird, great frigatebird, red-footed booby, brown booby, masked booby, black noddy and red-tailed tropicbird. The large number of shipwrecks within the area give it marine archaeological significance, there is no resident human population, the site is used principally for nature conservation and scientific research. The reserves are internationally renowned for diving, snorkeling and bird watching, access by commercial tour groups is regulated and limited, though there is some visitation by private yachts. Archived from the original on 19 September 2011, Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve and Lihou Reef National Nature Reserve, Management Plan
Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site
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The Coringa Islets and the Magdelaine and Herald Cays, as well as those of Lihou Reef, lie within the Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site
30.
Frederick Reefs
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Frederick Reef is in the Coral Sea Islands, over 220 nautical miles northeast of Gladstone, Queensland. The reef gets its name from Frederick, which first reported sighting the reef, the reefs are in a J shape that forms a semi-enclosed lagoon known as Anchorage Sound, with an opening on the North side. The complex measures about 10 by 4 kilometres, with an area of 30 square kilometres, the reef is located is some deep water and drops sharply to over 2,500 metres on the western side. The reefs are part of the reefs of the Coral Sea. Aside from its neighbours, it also lies 175 kilometres east from the Swains Reefs. Frederick Reefs is approximately 95 kilometres northeast of the Saumarez Reefs and 120 kilometres west of the northwest extremity of Kenn Reefs, the reefs form a semi-enclosed lagoon or body of water known as Anchorage Sound, protected on most sides but open on the north side. On the southern side of the reef lies Observatory Cay, the permanently dry land. Observatory Cay is approximately 1.8 metres above sea level, as the cay lies near the southern edge of the reef, the surf sometimes breaks over it in heavy gales. Similar to other smaller sand cays and spits, the position of the sand spit can move, in 1983, it was reported that Observatory Cay lay about 750 metres west of the charted position. It has also reported that the reef complex has at least 4 or 5 other sand cays on the southern reef which does not cover with water at high tide other than Observatory Cay. A solitary leaning rock,1.2 metres high, lies on the extremity of the Observatory Cay southern reef,2.4 kilometres west-northwest of Observatory Cay. From Observatory Cay, the part of the reef extends to the north. Danger Ridge is a ridge connecting the western end of Observation Cay. The North Reef Extreme is located to the north of Observatory Cay with its southern extremity about 3 kilometres north southern extremity of the Observatory Cay reef and it is about 2.7 kilometres long and about 900 metres wide. A small cay ls located 900 metres south of Frederick Reef Light, the Light has a nominal range of 20 kilometres, and stands at an elevation of 33 metres The reefs were discovered in 1812 by the Frederick. On 29 April 1825, Royal Charlotte arrived in Sydney from England with a load of convicts, the ship then took on detachments of the 20th, 46th, and 49th Regiments for transport to India by Batavia. On 11 June, the ship ran aground on Frederick Reefs, a party took the surviving longboat and travelled to Moreton Bay, arriving in July and causing the brig Amity to be dispatched to collect survivors. The discovery of the wreck was announced in January 2012, on 2 November 1966, the United States submarine USS Tiru departed from Brisbane for Subic Bay
Frederick Reefs
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Satellite View of Saumarez reefs (center) and the Swains reef (Left part of the Great Barrier Reef) and Frederick Reefs (right)
Frederick Reefs
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Map of the Coral Sea Islands
Frederick Reefs
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Satellite View of Frederick Reefs
Frederick Reefs
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Chart of Frederick Reefs
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