1.
Subtropical
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The subtropics are geographic and climate zones located roughly between the tropic circle of latitude at 23.5 latitude and temperate latitudes. Subtropical climates are characterized by warm to hot summers and cool to mild winters with infrequent frost. Subtropical climates can occur at elevations within the tropics, such as in the southern end of the Mexican Plateau and in Vietnam. Six climate classifications use the term to define the various temperature. A great portion of the deserts are located within the subtropics. Within savanna regimes in the subtropics, a wet season is seen annually during the summer, within Mediterranean climate regimes, the wet season occurs during the winter. Areas bordering warm oceans are prone to heavy rainfall from tropical cyclones. Plants such as palms, citrus, mango, lychee, the tropics have been historically defined as lying between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, located at 23. 45° north and south latitude respectively. The poleward fringe of the subtropics is located at approximately 40° north and south latitude respectively, northern fringes of the type can go further north due to moderating effects of ocean streams, like in parts of Southern Europe due to heat transported by the Gulf Stream. Several methods have used to define the subtropical climate. In the Trewartha climate classification, a subtropical region should have at least eight months with a temperature greater than 10 °C. According to the Troll-Paffen climate classification, there exists one large subtropical zone named the warm-temperate subtropical zone. According to the E. Neef climate classification, the zone is divided into two parts, Rainy winters of the west sides and Eastern subtropical climate. According to the Wilhelm Lauer & Peter Frankenberg climate classification, the zone is divided into three parts, high-continental, continental, and maritime. According to the Siegmund/Frankenberg climate classification, subtropical is one of six zones in the world. Heating of the earth near the equator leads to large amounts of upward motion and convection along the trough or Intertropical convergence zone. The upper-level divergence over the near-equatorial trough leads to air rising and moving away from the equator aloft, as the air moves towards the Mid-Latitudes, it cools and sinks, which leads to subsidence near the 30th parallel of both hemispheres. This circulation is known as the Hadley cell and leads to the formation of the subtropical ridge, many of the worlds deserts are caused by these climatological high-pressure areas, located within the subtropics
2.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
3.
New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
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North Island
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The North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the slightly larger but much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The islands area is 113,729 square kilometres, making it the worlds 14th-largest island and it has a population of 3,596,200. Twelve main urban areas are in the North Island, about 77% of New Zealands population lives in the North Island. Although the island has been known as the North Island for many years, in 2009 the New Zealand Geographic Board found that, along with the South Island, after a public consultation, the board officially named the island North Island or Te Ika-a-Maui in October 2013. In prose, the two islands of New Zealand are called the North Island and the South Island, with the definite articles. It is normal to use the preposition in rather than on, for example Hamilton is in the North Island, maps, headings, tables and adjectival expressions use North Island without the. According to Māori mythology, the North and South Islands of New Zealand arose through the actions of the demigod Māui, Māui and his brothers were fishing from their canoe when he caught a great fish and pulled it from the sea. While he was not looking his brothers fought over the fish and this great fish became the North Island and thus a Māori name for the North Island is Te Ika-a-Māui. The mountains and valleys are believed to have formed as a result of Māuis brothers hacking at the fish. Until the early 20th Century, an alternative Māori name for the North Island was Aotearoa, in present usage, Aotearoa is a collective name for New Zealand as a whole. The sub-national GDP of the North Island was estimated at US$102.863 billion in 2003, the island has an extensive flora and bird population, with numerous National Parks and other protected areas. Nine local government regions cover the North Island and all its adjacent islands, healthcare in the North Island is provided by fifteen District Health Boards. Organised around geographical areas of varying sizes, they are not coterminous with the Local Government Regions
5.
Tonga
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Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 169 islands of which 36 are inhabited. The total surface area is about 750 square kilometres scattered over 700,000 square kilometres of the southern Pacific Ocean and it has a population of 103,000 people of whom 70% reside on the main island of Tongatapu. Tonga stretches across approximately 800 kilometres in a north-south line and it is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east, Kermadec to the southwest, and New Caledonia and Vanuatu to the farther west. Tonga became known in the West as the Friendly Islands because of the reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He arrived at the time of the festival, the yearly donation of the First Fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga. According to the writer William Mariner, the wanted to kill Cook during the gathering. From 1900 to 1970, Tonga had British protected state status, the country never relinquished its sovereignty to any foreign power. In many Polynesian languages including Tongan, the word tonga means south, the name of Tonga is cognate to the Hawaiian region of Kona. In Malay, the name of Tonga is also cognate to the word Tenggara, an Austronesian-speaking group linked to the archaeological construct known as the Lapita cultural complex reached and inhabited Tonga around 1500–1000 BCE. Scholars have much debated the exact dates of the settlement of Tonga. Not much is known before European contact because of the lack of a writing system, in the 15th century and again in the 17th, civil war erupted. The Tongan people first encountered Europeans in 1616 when the Dutch vessel Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten, later came other Dutch explorers, including Jacob Le Maire, and in 1643 Abel Tasman. In 1845, the young warrior, strategist, and orator Tāufaʻāhau united Tonga into a kingdom. He held the title of Tuʻi Kanokupolu, but had been baptised by Methodist missionaries with the name Siaosi in 1831. Tonga became a state under a Treaty of Friendship with Britain on 18 May 1900. The treaty posted no higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul, under the protection of Britain, Tonga maintained its sovereignty, and remained the only Pacific nation to retain its monarchical government. The Tongan monarchy follows a succession of hereditary rulers from one family. The 1918 flu pandemic, brought to Tonga by a ship from New Zealand, killed 1,800 Tongans, the Treaty of Friendship and Tongas protection status ended in 1970 under arrangements established by Queen Salote Tupou III prior to her death in 1965
6.
Raoul Island
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The area of the island, including fringing islets and rocks mainly in the northeast, but also a few smaller ones in the southeast, is 29.38 km2. The highest elevation is Moumoukai Peak, at an elevation of 516 m, although Raoul is the only island in the Kermadec group large enough to support settlement, it lacks a safe harbour, and landings from small boats can only be made in calm weather. Considering offshore islets and rocks, the northernmost island of New Zealand is Nugent Island, about 100 metres in diameter, the coordinates of the northernmost point are 29°13′52″S 177°52′09″W. Napier Island stretches almost as far north as Nugent Island, which reaches just a few metres further north, stone implements of the Polynesian type have been found on Raoul Island, and there is indication of a prehistoric settlement. But the island was uninhabited when first sighted by Western sailors, the island was named after Joseph Raoul, quartermaster of the Recherche, when it was sighted on 16 March 1793. Captain William Raven of the whaler Britannia sighted the island on 6 March 1796 and called it Sunday Island, Captain Henry Mangles Denham of HMS Herald charted the island in 1854. The last regular occupants, Tom Bell and his wife Frederica, from 27 May to 16 June 1917, the German raider Wolf, under the command of Korvettenkapitän Karl August Nerger, anchored in the protected bay to undertake engine overhaul and maintenance. During this period Wolf captured the New Zealand steamship Wairuna and the American sailing bark Winslow, commandeering all cargo, the New Zealand government has permanently manned Raoul Island Station since 1937. It includes a government meteorological and radio station and hostel for Department of Conservation officers and volunteers, the station stands on the northern terraces of the island, about 50 m in elevation above the cliffs of Fleetwood Bluff. Raoul Island Station represents the northernmost outpost of New Zealand, two Holocene calderas are found at Raoul. The older caldera cuts the center of Raoul Island is about 2.5 km ×3.5 km long and wide respectively. Denham caldera, formed during a major explosive eruption about 2200 years ago, truncated the western side of the island and is 6.5 km ×4 km long. Its long axis is parallel to the fabric of the Havre Trough that lies west of the volcanic arc. The Denham caldera was named for the nearby Denham Bay, itself named by Capt Henry Mangles Denham in Herald who came to complete a survey of the island on 2 July 1854. His son Fleetwood James Denham died from a fever, and was buried near the beach at the head of Denham Bay. The brass plaque heading this grave has been preserved, three small lakes, Blue Lake, Green Lake and Tui Lake are located in the northern caldera of Raoul Island. The plains surrounding the lakes are called Pumice Flats, Raoul Island has a humid subtropical climate. The scientific categorisation of the flora and fauna of the began in 1854 when HMS Herald, captained by Henry Mangles Denham
7.
Polynesia
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Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including the language family, culture, and beliefs. Historically, they were experienced sailors who used stars to navigate at night, the term Polynesia was first used in 1756 by French writer Charles de Brosses, and originally applied to all the islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont dUrville proposed a restriction on its use during a lecture to the Geographical Society of Paris, historically, these islands have also been referred to as the South Sea Islands. Polynesia is characterized by an amount of land spread over a very large portion of the mid. Most Polynesian islands and archipelagos, including the Hawaiian Islands and Samoa, are composed of volcanic islands built by hotspots, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Ouvéa, the Polynesian outlier near New Caledonia, are the unsubmerged portions of the largely sunken continent of Zealandia. At first, the Pacific plate was subducted under the Australian plate, the Alpine Fault that traverses the South Island is currently a transform fault while the convergent plate boundary from the North Island northwards is called the Kermadec-Tonga Subduction Zone. The volcanism associated with subduction zone is the origin of the Kermadec. Out of approximately 300,000 or 310,000 square kilometres of land, over 270,000 km2 are within New Zealand, the Zealandia continent has approximately 3,600,000 km2 of continental shelf. The oldest rocks in the region are found in New Zealand and are believed to be about 510 million years old, the oldest Polynesian rocks outside of Zealandia are to be found in the Hawaiian Emperor Seamount Chain, and are 80 million years old. Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian Triangle, geographically, the Polynesian Triangle is drawn by connecting the points of Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island. The other main island groups located within the Polynesian Triangle are Samoa, Tonga, there are also small Polynesian settlements in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, and in Vanuatu. An island group with strong Polynesian cultural traits outside of this triangle is Rotuma. The people of Rotuma have many common Polynesian traits but speak a non-Polynesian language, some of the Lau Islands to the southeast of Fiji have strong historic and cultural links with Tonga. However, in essence, Polynesia is a term referring to one of the three parts of Oceania. Some islands of Polynesian origin are outside the triangle that geographically defines the region. The Phoenix Islands and Line Islands, most of which are part of Kiribati, are geographically Polynesian islands, tracing Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in the Malay Archipelago, and ultimately, in Taiwan. Between about 3000 and 1000 BC speakers of Austronesian languages began spreading from Taiwan into Island Southeast Asia, there are three theories regarding the spread of humans across the Pacific to Polynesia
8.
Lady Penrhyn (1786 ship)
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Lady Penrhyn was built on the River Thames in 1786 as a slave ship. For her first voyage she transported convicts to New South Wales as part of the First Fleet, on her voyage back to Britain she was the first European vessel to pass by the Kermadec Islands, and the Penrhyn Atoll in the Cook Islands. She also carried a cargo for the British East India Company, the French captured her in the West Indies in 1811 and scuttled her. Lady Penrhyn was designed as a ship for use in the Atlantic slave trade. She was part-owned by William Compton Sever, who served as master on her voyage to Australia. Lady Penrhyn left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787, at Port Jackson, Sydney, Australia and she carried 101 female convicts, and three officers and 41 other ranks of the New South Wales Marine Corps, as well as her crew. She was part of a convoy of ships, the so-called First Fleet, which brought over 1000 convicts, marines. John Turnpenny Altree was surgeon to the convicts, and Arthur Bowes Smyth was surgeon to the crew, Bowes Smyth then took charge of the prisoners on the ship when Altree fell ill at Tenerife and in Governor Arthur Phillip’s opinion had proved unequal to the task. The list of stores unloaded from Lady Penrhyn on 25 March at Port Jackson has been quoted in books on the First Fleet. In Sydney Cove 1788 by John Cobley the amount of rice unloaded is given as 8 bram and this amount has been repeated in various books on the First Fleet. Bram, however, is not a unit of measurement and the log entry lists the amount of rice as 8 barrels. Lady Penrhyn also carried the first horses that came to Australia and these are believed to have consisted of one stallion, one colt, three mares, and two fillies from Cape Town, South Africa. Her owners had obtained a license to sail to the northwest coast from the South Sea Company, accordingly, she departed Sydney Cove on 5 May 1788 and sailed north with the intention of purchasing furs in Kamchatka for resale in China. Her course was chosen to minimise interaction with Russian vessels, as trade in Kamchatka furs was considered by Russia to be smuggling. On 31 May, Sever sighted the Kermadec Islands — he named Macauley Island after McCaulay and Curtis Island after William Curtis. She then visited and named Penrhyn Island—the atoll of Tongareva in the Cook Islands—on 8 August, arriving at Macao on 19 October 1788, captain Sever left Whampoa on 8 January 1789 and Lady Penrhyn crossed the Second Bar on 14 January. She reached St Helena on 19 May and arrived at The Downs on 10 August, in 1789 Lady Penrhyn was sold to Wedderburn & Co. London and used in a run to Jamaica
9.
Brittany
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Brittany is a cultural region in the north-west of France. Brittany has also referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain. It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and its land area is 34,023 km². Since reorganisation in 1956, the administrative region of Brittany comprises only four of the five Breton departments. The remaining area of old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department around Nantes, at the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. Of these, 71% lived in the region of Brittany, while 29% lived in the Loire-Atlantique department, in 2012, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes, Rennes, and Brest. Brittany is the homeland of the Breton people and is recognised by the Celtic League as one of the six Celtic nations. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic, the word Brittany, along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne, Breizh and Bertaèyn, derive from the Latin Britannia, which means Britons land. This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain and this word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη or Βρεττανίαι, used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Islands around 320 BC. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica, which close to the sea. Another name, Letauia, was used until the 12th century and it possibly means wide and flat or to expand and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany, Llydaw. Later, authors like Geoffrey of Monmouth used the terms Britannia minor, breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two dialects, the KLT and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it and would write it Breiz, while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it, the official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh, on its side, Gallo language has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA, Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe and their only original feature was a distinct culture, called Colombanian. One of the oldest hearths in the world has found in Plouhinec
10.
D'Entrecasteaux
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Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni dEntrecasteaux was a French naval officer, explorer and colonial governor. He is perhaps best known for his exploration of the Australian coast in 1792, antoine Bruni dEntrecasteaux is commonly referred to simply as Bruni dEntrecasteaux or Bruny dEntrecasteaux, which is a compound surname. Bruni dEntrecasteaux was born to Dorothée de Lestang-Parade and Jean Baptiste Bruny and his father was a member of the Parlement of Provence. Antoine Bruni dEntrecasteaux was educated at a Jesuit school and reportedly intended to become a priest in the Society of Jesus, but his father intervened and enlisted him in the French Navy in 1754. In the action that secured the Balearic Islands for Spain, Bruni dEntrecasteaux was a midshipman aboard the 26-gun Minerve and his further naval career as a junior officer was uneventful, and he appears in this period to have done general service in the French Navy. For a time Bruni dEntrecasteaux was Assistant Director of ports and arsenals, during this service he opened up a new route to Canton by way of the Sunda Strait and the Moluccas, for use during the south-east monsoon season. He was then appointed Governor of the French colony of Isle de France, in September 1791, the French Assembly decided to send an expedition in search of Jean-François de La Pérouse, who had not been heard of since leaving Botany Bay in March 1788. Bruni dEntrecasteaux was selected to command this expedition and he was given a frigate, Recherche, with Lieutenant Jean-Louis dHesmity-dAuribeau as his second-in-command and Rossel among the other officers. A similar ship, Espérance, was placed under Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec, a distinguished hydrographical engineer, Beautemps-Beaupré, served as the hydrographer of the expedition. When the expedition left Brest on 28 September 1791, Entrecasteaux was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, DEntrecasteaux was next to follow Pérouses intended route in the Pacific. On 20 April 1792, that land was in sight, for the next five weeks, until 28 May 1792, the Frenchmen carried out careful boat explorations which revealed in detail the beautiful waterways and estuaries in the area. The work this officer did in the field was excellent, and his charts, the atlas contains 39 charts, of which those of Van Diemens Land were the most detailed, they remained the source of the English charts of the area for many years. On 16 May, dEntrecasteaux commenced to sail the ships through the channel, port Esperance, the Huon River, and other features were discovered, named, and charted, the admirals names being given to the channel and the large island separated by it from the mainland. On 28 May 1792 the ships sailed into the Pacific to search for La Pérouse, on 17 June they arrived off the Isle of Pines, south of New Caledonia. From there, dEntrecasteaux sailed northward along the western coast of New Caledonia, on 6 December land was sighted near Cape Leeuwin, and named DEntrecasteaux Point. This event was celebrated by feastings and parties, one result of which was that the smith on board Recherche, the weather proved boisterous, and the ships failed to find King George III Sound, originally discovered by Vancouver. As they sailed further east, they penetrated numerous islands and dangerous shoals, while the Frenchmen were still in that dangerous area, on 12 December a violent storm descended upon them, and both ships were nearly wrecked. Fortunately, however, they found an anchorage where they were able to out the worst of the gale
11.
Meteorology
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Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences which includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics, with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century, the 19th century saw modest progress in the field after weather observation networks were formed across broad regions. Prior attempts at prediction of weather depended on historical data, Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events that are explained by the science of meteorology. Different spatial scales are used to describe and predict weather on local, regional, Meteorology, climatology, atmospheric physics, and atmospheric chemistry are sub-disciplines of the atmospheric sciences. Meteorology and hydrology compose the interdisciplinary field of hydrometeorology, the interactions between Earths atmosphere and its oceans are part of a coupled ocean-atmosphere system. Meteorology has application in diverse fields such as the military, energy production, transport, agriculture. The word meteorology is from Greek μετέωρος metéōros lofty, high and -λογία -logia -logy, varāhamihiras classical work Brihatsamhita, written about 500 AD, provides clear evidence that a deep knowledge of atmospheric processes existed even in those times. In 350 BC, Aristotle wrote Meteorology, Aristotle is considered the founder of meteorology. One of the most impressive achievements described in the Meteorology is the description of what is now known as the hydrologic cycle and they are all called swooping bolts because they swoop down upon the Earth. Lightning is sometimes smoky, and is then called smoldering lightning, sometimes it darts quickly along, at other times, it travels in crooked lines, and is called forked lightning. When it swoops down upon some object it is called swooping lightning, the Greek scientist Theophrastus compiled a book on weather forecasting, called the Book of Signs. The work of Theophrastus remained a dominant influence in the study of weather, in 25 AD, Pomponius Mela, a geographer for the Roman Empire, formalized the climatic zone system. According to Toufic Fahd, around the 9th century, Al-Dinawari wrote the Kitab al-Nabat, ptolemy wrote on the atmospheric refraction of light in the context of astronomical observations. St. Roger Bacon was the first to calculate the size of the rainbow. He stated that a rainbow summit can not appear higher than 42 degrees above the horizon, in the late 13th century and early 14th century, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī and Theodoric of Freiberg were the first to give the correct explanations for the primary rainbow phenomenon. Theoderic went further and also explained the secondary rainbow, in 1716, Edmund Halley suggested that aurorae are caused by magnetic effluvia moving along the Earths magnetic field lines. In 1441, King Sejongs son, Prince Munjong, invented the first standardized rain gauge and these were sent throughout the Joseon Dynasty of Korea as an official tool to assess land taxes based upon a farmers potential harvest. In 1450, Leone Battista Alberti developed a swinging-plate anemometer, and was known as the first anemometer, in 1607, Galileo Galilei constructed a thermoscope
12.
Department of Conservation (New Zealand)
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The Department of Conservation is the public service department of New Zealand charged with the conservation of New Zealands natural and historical heritage. An advisory body, the New Zealand Conservation Authority is provided to advise DOC, in addition there are 13 conservation boards for different areas around the country that provide for interaction between DOC and the public. This Act also set out the majority of the Departments responsibilities and roles, as a consequence of Conservation Act all Crown land in New Zealand designated for conservation and protection became managed by the Department of Conservation. All of the land under its control is protected for conservation, ecological, scenic, scientific, historic or cultural reasons. DOC also administers the Nature Heritage Fund, and is responsible for fire control. In addition to its work managing land and providing for recreation in New Zealand and this is particularly a concern amongst some farmers and other industries that are major users of neighbouring land, many of whom have been affected by decisions of the department. After a number of years of falling budgets, in 2013 the department announced it would be slashing 140 jobs, the Department of Conservation moved into a new headquarters, Conservation House, on Manners Street, Wellington in 2006. It is the first green building in New Zealand to be given a 5-star rating, having won numerous environmental awards, including a top 10 placing by Grist Magazine. The site was originally a cinema operated by the Hoyts Group from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s. The Department serves 1 portfolio and 3 ministers, New Zealand has 13 national parks, and a wide number of other conservation lands with varying levels of environmental protection, called the conservation estate in total. About one third of this estate, generally the land considered most valuable, has been protected from mining since 1997 via being listed in Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991, in 1995,14 people died when a viewing platform maintained by the Department of Conservation collapsed. Immediately following the tragedy, all of the departments 106 viewing platforms throughout New Zealand were checked, fifteen platforms were closed for repairs. A Commission of Inquiry that followed the tragedy revealed that the department had acted illegally and negligently in constructing the viewing platform. Many people in New Zealand criticised the government for the situation, and Denis Marshall. In March 2006, an eruption at the Green Lake of Raoul Island. At the exact time of the eruption, Mr Kearney is thought to have been taking measurements of the lake as part of a programme for monitoring volcanic activity. Five other DOC workers, who were living on the island, were forced to evacuate back to New Zealand shortly after the eruption. Searches for Mr Kearney, which have been inhibited by the remote location
13.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
14.
'Ata
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ʻAta is a small, rocky island in the far south of the Tonga archipelago, situated on 22°20′30″S 176°12′30″W. It is also known as Pylstaart island, in fact the following myth is rather from the original Tongans in the Lau Islands than from Tonga proper itself. According to these myths it was, together with ʻEua the first island hauled up by the Maui brothers from the bottom of the sea, having not much experience in this type of fishing yet, these two islands became quite hilly. It had originally 7 hills, but Maui stamped on the highest mountain until it was flattened into its surrounding valleys, by the time only 3 hills were left over he was weary and went away. With the following islands he hauled up, starting with Tongatapu, the sub-god Laufakanaʻa was the first ruler of ʻAta. The first European to discover ʻAta was Abel Tasman on 19 January 1643, adverse winds prohibited him from coming closer and no natives coming to him in their canoes were seen either. From his vantage point, the shape of the island resembled to him the breasts of a woman, the island is recognized by Cook during his second voyage, and its coordinates were corrected by Lapérouse who referred to the island as île Plistard. ʻAta has the honour to be one of the three islands in Tonga to have been affected by the Peruvian slavetrade of 1862 to 1864. In 1862 the Peruvian government had decided to obtain indentured labourers to collect guano on the Perus Chincha Islands, a fleet of ships spread out over the Pacific to find willing migrants, but quickly switched to plain kidnapping tactics instead. In June 1863 about 350 people lived on ʻAta in a village called Kolomaile, Captain Thomas James McGrath of the whaler Grecian, having decided that slavetrade was more profitable than whaling, came along and invited the islanders on board for trading. But once almost half of the population was on board, doors and rooms were locked, the Grecian tried to get more recruits from the Lau group, but was not successful there. From Niuafouʻou it was able to fool only 30 people, the island in Tonga to be affected. The Grecian never made it to Peru, meanwhile, however, the Peruvian government, under pressure from foreign powers and also shocked that its labour plan had turned into a slavetrade, had already on 28 April cancelled all licenses. The islanders on board of the General Prim, and other ships were not allowed to enter Peruvian soil. They were transferred to other ships chartered by the Peruvian government to bring them home, by the time,2 October 1863, the Adelante finally left, many had already died or were dying from contagious diseases. It seems that Captain Escurra of the Adelante had not any intention to bring them home after being paid $30 per head, instead he dumped them on uninhabited Cocos Island, claiming that the 426 kanakas were affected with smallpox and a danger to his crew. 200 were left there when the whaler Active passed along. Somewhere in November finally a Peruvian warship Tumbes came to save the survivors and they were brought to Paita, where they apparently were absorbed in the local population
15.
Macauley Island
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Macauley Island is a volcanic island in New Zealands Kermadec Islands, approximately halfway between New Zealands North Island and Tonga in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The islands topography is simple, being a single high-sided plateau, macauleys highest point is 238 m Mount Haszard, and it forms part of the rim of a caldera centred 8 km to the north-west, atop a large submarine volcano. The volcanos last eruption was in 4360 BC ±200 years, lady Penrhyn had delivered convicts to New South Wales as part of the First Fleet and was proceeding to the north west coast of America refer to trade furs and thence to Macao. A castaway depot was established on Macauley Island in 1889, which was regularly serviced until 1918, the island is a breeding site for large numbers of black-winged and white-necked petrels. The island also holds a population of the Kermadec red-crowned parakeet, former populations of goats and kiore have been eradicated. The island forms part of the Kermadec Islands Important Bird Area, the island’s flora is predominantly sedges and ferns, with Cyperus and Hypolepis prominent. The original forest cover of the island had been burnt off, the goats were eradicated by the New Zealand Wildlife Service in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In order to protect the wildlife, Macauley is managed as a nature reserve by the New Zealand Department of Conservation. In 2006, DOC used aerial drops of poison bait in order to remove introduced rats, royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Rats removed from Macauley Island. Status of Kermadec red-crowned parakeets and the effects of a proposed kiore eradication programme. Wellington, Department of Conservation, New Zealand
16.
Curtis Island, New Zealand
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Curtis Island is an island in the southwest Pacific. It is an island with an elevation of 130 m. Together with neighboring Cheeseman Island it belongs to the Kermadec Islands, politically it is part of New Zealand. The Kermadec Islands lie halfway between North Island, New Zealand and Tonga at approximately the latitude of the Gold Coast, lady Penryn had delivered convicts to New South Wales as part of the First Fleet and was proceeding to Macao. The island is a site for the masked booby. It forms part of the Kermadec Islands Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because it is an important site for nesting seabirds, List of islands of New Zealand List of volcanoes in New Zealand Greene, T. C. Status of Kermadec red-crowned parakeets and the effects of a proposed kiore eradication programme. Wellington, Department of Conservation, New Zealand
17.
Cheeseman Island
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Cheeseman Island is a 7.6 ha rocky volcanic island in the southwest Pacific Ocean. It is named after Thomas Frederick Cheeseman of the Auckland Museum - who was on board the New Zealand Government steamer Stella when it visited the island in 1887 and it neighbours Curtis Island to the east and lies about 20 km south of Macauley Island. They are part of the Kermadec Islands, an outlying island group of New Zealand. The Kermadec Islands lie halfway between the North Island of New Zealand and Tonga at approximately the latitude of the Gold Coast, apart from a short stretch of its west coast, the island is bordered by cliffs, making access from the sea difficult. It is rugged and rocky, with woody vegetation. The island forms part of the Kermadec Islands Important Bird Area, seabirds breeding on the island include Kermadec and black-winged petrels, Kermadec little shearwaters and sooty terns. List of islands of New Zealand Greene, T. C, status of Kermadec red-crowned parakeets and the likely effects of a proposed kiore eradication programme. Wellington, Department of Conservation, New Zealand
18.
Nugent Island
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Nugent Island is the most northerly island in the Kermadec Islands and the most northerly part of New Zealand. It is one of the group to the north-east of Raoul Island and it is circular and approximately 100 metres across. It forms part of the Kermadec Islands Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because it is an important site for nesting seabirds, list of islands of New Zealand New Zealand outlying islands
19.
L'Esperance Rock
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LEsperance Rock, formerly French Rock, and previously Brind Rock, is the southernmost islet in the Kermadec Islands, to the north of New Zealand. It is 80 km south of Curtis Island and 600 km northeast of East Cape on New Zealands North Island at 31°26′S 178°54′W, the smaller LHavre Rock lies 8 km to the north-west of LEsperance, it is a reef that barely reaches the surface. LEsperance Rock is 250 m in diameter with an area of 4.8 ha and it rises to a height of 70 m. The island forms part of the Kermadec Islands Important Bird Area and it is the site of a substantial breeding colony of grey noddies. Masked boobies have also recorded breeding there. 2012 Kermadec Islands eruption and pumice raft List of islands of New Zealand New Zealand outlying islands Greene, status of Kermadec red-crowned parakeets and the likely effects of a proposed kiore eradication programme. Wellington, Department of Conservation, New Zealand
20.
Seamount
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A seamount is a mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach to the waters surface, and thus is not an island. Seamounts are typically formed from volcanoes that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from the seafloor to 1. They are defined by oceanographers as independent features that rise to at least 1,000 m above the seafloor, the peaks are often found hundreds to thousands of meters below the surface, and are therefore considered to be within the deep sea. During their evolution over time, the largest seamounts may reach the sea surface where wave action erodes the summit to form a flat surface. Seamounts and guyots are most abundant in the North Pacific Ocean, in recent years, several active seamounts have been observed, for example Loihi in the Hawaiian Islands. Because of their abundance, seamounts are one of the most common marine ecosystems in the world, interactions between seamounts and underwater currents, as well as their elevated position in the water, attract plankton, corals, fish, and marine mammals alike. Their aggregational effect has been noted by the fishing industry. There are ongoing concerns on the impact of fishing on seamount ecosystems. 95% of ecological damage is done by bottom trawling, which scrapes whole ecosystems off seamounts, because of their large numbers, many seamounts remain to be properly studied, and even mapped. Bathymetry and satellite altimetry are two technologies working to close the gap, there have been instances where naval vessels have collided with uncharted seamounts, for example, Muirfield Seamount is named after the ship that struck it in 1973. Seamounts can be found in every ocean basin in the world, a seamount is technically defined as an isolated rise in elevation of 1,000 m or more from the surrounding seafloor, and with a limited summit area, of conical form. If small knolls, ridges and hills less than 1,000 m in height are included there are over 100,000 seamounts in the world ocean. Most seamounts are volcanic in origin, and thus tend to be found on oceanic crust near mid-ocean ridges, mantle plumes, and island arcs. Overall, seamount and guyot coverage is greatest as a proportion of area in the North Pacific Ocean. The Arctic Ocean has only 16 seamounts and no guyots, the 9,951 seamounts mapped cover an area of 8,088,550 km2. The largest seamount has an area of 15,500 km2, guyots cover a total area of 707,600 km2 and have an average area of 2,500 km2, more than twice the average size of seamounts. Nearly 50% of guyot area and 42% of the number of guyots occur in the North Pacific Ocean, the largest three guyots are all in the North Pacific, the Kuko Guyot, Suiko Guyot and the Pallada Guyot. Seamount chain redirects here, for a broader coverage related to this topic, Seamounts are often found in groupings or submerged archipelagos, a classic example being the Emperor Seamounts, an extension of the Hawaiian Islands
21.
Kermadec Islands
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The Kermadec Islands /kərˈmædɛk/ are a subtropical island arc in the South Pacific Ocean 800–1,000 km northeast of New Zealands North Island, and a similar distance southwest of Tonga. The islands are part of New Zealand,33 km2 in total area and nowadays uninhabited, except for the permanently manned Raoul Island Station, the northernmost outpost of New Zealand. Polynesian people settled the Kermadec Islands in around the 14th century, the islands were named for the Breton captain Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec, who visited the islands as part of the dEntrecasteaux expedition in the 1790s. European settlers, initially the Bell family, lived on the islands from the nineteenth century until 1937. One of the Bell daughters, Elsie K. Morton, recounted the experience there in her memoir. The Station consists of a government meteorological and radio station, and a hostel for Department of Conservation officers and volunteers and it lies on the northern terraces of Raoul Island, at an elevation of about 50 m, above the cliffs of Fleetwood Bluff. It is the northernmost inhabited outpost of New Zealand, the islands lie within 29° to 31. 5° south latitude and 178° to 179° west longitude, 800–1,000 km northeast of New Zealands North Island, and a similar distance southwest of Tonga. The centre of the Kermadec Islands group is located at approximately 29°16′37″S 177°55′24″W, the total area of the islands is 33.08 km2. The climate of the islands is subtropical, with a mean temperature of 22.4 °C in February and 16.0 °C in August. Rainfall is approximately 1,500 mm annually, with rainfall from October through January. The group includes four islands and some isolated rocks, which are, from north to south. It is located at 29°16′0″S 177°55′10″W,900 km south-southwest of Ata, the southernmost island of Tonga, Raoul Island has an area of 29.06 km2 with neighboring island, Haszard Island. Macdonald Rock is about 4 km north of Macauley Island at 30°11′S 178°26′W, Curtis Island, the third largest, is located at 30°32′32″S 178°33′39″W,35 km south-southwest of Macauley Island,137 m high, area 0.59 km2 with neighbouring Cheeseman Island. Nugent Island is the northernmost island and it is located at 29°13′54″S 177°52′09″W. It is approximately 100 metres across, LEsperance Rock, formerly French Rock, is 80 km south-southwest of Curtis Island at 31°26′S 178°54′W,250 m in diameter,0.05 km2 in area,70 m high. LHavre Rock, about 8 km north-northwest of LEsperance Rock near 31°21′S 178°59′W Seamounts north and south of the Kermadec Islands are an extension of the running from Tonga to New Zealand. The subducting Pacific Plate created the Kermadec Trench, an 8 km deep submarine trench, the islands lie along the undersea Kermadec Ridge, which runs southwest from the islands towards the North Island of New Zealand and northeast towards Tonga. The four main islands are the peaks of volcanoes that rise high enough from the seabed to project above sea level, there are several other volcanoes in the chain that do not reach sea level, but form seamounts with between 65 and 1500 m of water above their peaks
22.
Volcano
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A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. Earths volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, therefore, on Earth, volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. This type of volcanism falls under the umbrella of plate hypothesis volcanism, Volcanism away from plate boundaries has also been explained as mantle plumes. These so-called hotspots, for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs with magma from the boundary,3,000 km deep in the Earth. Volcanoes are usually not created where two plates slide past one another. Erupting volcanoes can pose hazards, not only in the immediate vicinity of the eruption. Historically, so-called volcanic winters have caused catastrophic famines, the word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn comes from Vulcan, the god of fire in Roman mythology. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled vulcanology, at the mid-oceanic ridges, two tectonic plates diverge from one another as new oceanic crust is formed by the cooling and solidifying of hot molten rock. Most divergent plate boundaries are at the bottom of the oceans, therefore, most volcanic activity is submarine, black smokers are evidence of this kind of volcanic activity. Where the mid-oceanic ridge is above sea-level, volcanic islands are formed, for example, subduction zones are places where two plates, usually an oceanic plate and a continental plate, collide. In this case, the plate subducts, or submerges under the continental plate forming a deep ocean trench just offshore. In a process called flux melting, water released from the subducting plate lowers the temperature of the overlying mantle wedge. This magma tends to be very viscous due to its high content, so it often does not reach the surface. When it does reach the surface, a volcano is formed, typical examples of this kind of volcano are Mount Etna and the volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Because tectonic plates move across them, each volcano becomes dormant and is eventually re-formed as the plate advances over the postulated plume and this theory is currently under criticism, however. The most common perception of a volcano is of a mountain, spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit, however. The features of volcanoes are more complicated and their structure. Some volcanoes have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a summit crater while others have features such as massive plateaus
23.
Convergent boundary
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As a result of pressure, friction, and plate material melting in the mantle, earthquakes and volcanoes are common near convergent boundaries. When two plates move towards one another, they form either a subduction zone or a continental collision and this depends on the nature of the plates involved. In a subduction zone, the plate, which is normally a plate with oceanic crust, moves beneath the other plate. During collisions between two plates, large mountain ranges, such as the Himalayas are formed. The nature of a convergent boundary depends on the type of plates that are colliding, at an oceanic-continental convergent boundary, the oceanic lithosphere will always subduct below the continental lithosphere. This is caused by the density difference between the oceanic and continental lithosphere. This type of boundary is called a subduction zone. At the surface, the expression is commonly an oceanic trench which forms on the oceanic side. On the continental side, a chain of volcanoes forms above the location of the subducting plate, an example of a continental-oceanic subduction zone is the area along the western coast of South America where the oceanic Nazca Plate is being subducted beneath the continental South American Plate. A volcanic arc is formed on the plate, above the location of the downgoing oceanic slab. The volcanic arc is the expression of the magma that is generated by hydrous melting of the mantle above the downgoing slab. The buoyant fluids then rise into the asthenosphere, where they lower the temperature of the mantle. Either action will create extensive mountain ranges and it may have also pushed nearby parts of the Asian continent aside to the east. When two plates with oceanic crust converge, they create an island arc as one plate is subducted below the other. The arc is formed from volcanoes which erupt through the plate as the descending plate melts below it. The arc shape occurs because of the surface of the earth. A deep oceanic trench is located in front of such arcs where the descending slab dips downward, plates may collide at an oblique angle rather than head-on to each other, and this may cause strike-slip faulting along the collision zone, in addition to subduction or compression. Not all plate boundaries are easily defined, some are broad belts whose movements are unclear to scientists
24.
Pacific Plate
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The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million square kilometres, it is the largest tectonic plate, the Pacific Plate contains an interior hot spot forming the Hawaiian Islands. Hillis and Müller are reported to consider the Birds Head Plate to be moving in unison with the Pacific Plate, bird considers them to be unconnected. The north-eastern side is a divergent boundary with the Explorer Plate, the Juan de Fuca Plate and the Gorda Plate forming respectively the Explorer Ridge, the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Gorda Ridge. In the middle of the side is a transform boundary with the North American Plate along the San Andreas Fault. The south-eastern side is a divergent boundary with the Nazca Plate forming the East Pacific Rise, the southern side is a divergent boundary with the Antarctic Plate forming the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge. The Alpine Fault marks a boundary between the two plates, and further south the Indo-Australian Plate subducts under the Pacific Plate forming the Puysegur Trench. The southern part of Zealandia, which is to the east of this boundary, is the plates largest block of continental crust, the northern side is a convergent boundary subducting under the North American Plate forming the Aleutian Trench and the corresponding Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Plate is almost entirely oceanic crust, but it contains some continental crust in New Zealand, Baja California, the Pacific Plate has the distinction of showing one of the largest areal sections of the oldest members of seabed geology being entrenched into eastern Asian oceanic trenches. The oldest member disappearing by way of the Plate Tectonics cycle is early-Cretaceous, all maps of the Earths ocean floor geology show ages younger than 145 million years, only about 1/30 of the Earths 4.55 billion year history
25.
Kermadec Trench
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The Kermadec Trench is one of Earths deepest oceanic trenches, reaching a depth of 10,047 metres. The Tonga Trench marks the continuation of subduction beyond this point, subduction south of the Kermadec Trench is marked by the shallower Hikurangi Trench. The Kermadec Trench is noted for its very abrupt slope, in 2012, deep sea researchers discovered individuals of a species of giant amphipod at the trenchs lowest depths. Unlike most amphipods, which are approximately 2.5 cm long, this species reaches up to 34 cm in length, and are milky-white
26.
Submarine trench
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The oceanic trenches are linear oceanographic features which are topographic depressions of the sea floor, relatively narrow in width, but hemispheric-scale in length. They are the deepest parts of the ocean floor, a trench marks the position at which the flexed, subducting slab begins to descend beneath another lithospheric slab. Trenches are generally parallel to an island arc, and about 200 km from a volcanic arc. Oceanic trenches typically extend 3 to 4 km below the level of the surrounding oceanic floor, the greatest ocean depth to be sounded is in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, at a depth of 11,034 m below sea level. Oceanic lithosphere moves into trenches at a rate of about 3 km2/yr. Globally, there are over 50 major ocean trenches covering an area of 1.9 million km2 or about 0. 5% of the oceans and this applies to Cascadia, Makran, southern Lesser Antilles, and Calabrian trenches. Trenches are related to but distinguished from continental collision zones, where continental crust enters the subduction zone, when buoyant continental crust enters a trench, subduction eventually stops and the convergent plate margin becomes a collision zone. Trenches were not clearly defined until the late 1940s and 1950s, the bathymetry of the ocean was of no real interest until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the initial laying of Transatlantic telegraph cables on the seafloor between the continents. Even then the elongated bathymetric expression of trenches was not recognized until well into the 20th century, the term “trench” does not appear in Murray and Hjort’s classic oceanography book. Instead they applied the term “deep“ for the deepest parts of the ocean, the term was first used in a geologic context by Scofield two years after the war ended to describe a structurally controlled depression in the Rocky Mountains. Johnstone, in his 1923 textbook An Introduction to Oceanography, first used the term in its sense for any marked. His measurements revealed that trenches are sites of downwelling in the solid Earth, the concept of downwelling at trenches was characterized by Griggs in 1939 as the tectogene hypothesis, for which he developed an analogue model using a pair of rotating drums. World War II in the Pacific led to improvements of bathymetry in especially the western and northern Pacific. The rapid growth of deep sea research efforts, especially the use of echosounders in the 1950s and 1960s confirmed the morphological utility of the term. The important trenches were identified, sampled, and their greatest depths sonically plumbed, the heroic phase of trench exploration culminated in the 1960 descent of the Bathyscaphe Trieste, which set an unbeatable world record by diving to the bottom of the Challenger Deep. This has been termed trench rollback or hinge retreat and this is one explanation for the existence of back-arc basins. Slab rollback is a process which occurs during the subduction of two tectonic plates resulting in the motion of the trench. Forces acting perpendicular to the slab at depth are responsible for the migration of the slab in the mantle and ultimately the movement of the hinge
27.
Whakaari/White Island
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Whakaari / White Island is an active andesite stratovolcano, situated 48 km from the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, in the Bay of Plenty. It is New Zealands most active volcano, and has been built up by continuous volcanic activity over the past 150,000 years. The nearest mainland towns are Whakatane and Tauranga, White Island has been in a nearly continuous stage of smoking at least since it was discovered by James Cook in 1769. The island is circular, about 2 km in diameter. However this is only the peak of a larger submarine mountain. Sulfur mining was attempted but was abandoned in 1914 after a lahar killed all 10 workers, the main activities on the island now are guided tours and scientific research. Whakaaris eruptions have produced lava flows and explosive eruptions of ash. It is New Zealands most well-known active marine volcano, attracting scientists and volcanologists worldwide as well as many tourists and it is part of the Taupo Volcanic Zone. Volcanologists from the GeoNet Project continually monitor the activity via surveillance cameras. Survey pegs, magnetometers and seismograph equipment for early earthquake warnings via radio have also installed on the crater walls. The island is usually on a level rating of 1 or 2 on a scale of 0 to 5. This volcano is monitored by the Deep Earth Carbon Degassing Project, at most times the volcanic activity is limited to steaming fumaroles and boiling mud. In March 2000, three small vents appeared in the crater and began belching ash which covered the island in fine grey powder. An eruption on 27 July 2000 blanketed the island with mud and scoria, major eruptions in 1981–83 altered much of the islands landscape and decimated the extensive pōhutukawa forest. The large crater created at that time now contains a lake, between July and August 2012 White Island showed signs of increased activity with lake and gas levels rising from inside the crater. On 5 August 2012 a minor eruption occurred, sending ash into the air, continued volcanic activity and tremors on 25 January 2013 suggested another eruption was imminent. A small eruption occurred on 20 August 2013 at 10. 23am, lasting for 10 minutes, according to The New Zealand Herald newspaper, Civil Defence will monitor White Island following a small eruption which could be part of a sequence leading to a bigger event. The full Māori name for the island is Te Puia o Whakaari and it was named White Island by Captain Cook on 1 October 1769 because it always appeared to be in a cloud of white steam
28.
Bay of Plenty
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The Bay of Plenty, known in Māori as Te Moana-a-Toi, is a large indentation in the northern coast of New Zealands North Island. It stretches from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runaway in the east, the Bay of Plenty Region is situated around this body of water, also incorporating several large islands in the bay. The Māori name for the bay is Te Moana-a-Toi, a reference to the ancestral explorer Toi-te-huatahi, various waka arrived with settlers from eastern Polynesia around the thirteenth century, Mataatua, Nukutere, Tainui, Te Arawa and Takitimu. The name Bay of Plenty originated with the English explorer James Cook during his 1769–70 exploration of New Zealand, in the 1830s, Europeans began to settle in the area. On 5 October 2011, the MV Rena ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef in the bay causing an oil spill. The coastline from Waihi Beach in the west to Opape is defined as sandy coast, sizeable harbours are located at Tauranga, Whakatane and Ohiwa. Major estuaries include Maketu, Little Waihi, Whakatane, Waiotahe, eight major rivers empty into the bay from inland catchments, including Wairoa River, Kaituna, Tarawera, Rangitaiki, Whakatane, Waioeka, Motu and Raukokore rivers. The bay contains numerous islands, notably the active volcano Whakaari / White Island, other large islands include Matakana Island, Mayor Island / Tuhua, Motiti Island, and Moutohora Island. The coast is dotted with several settlements, the largest of which is the conurbation of the city of Tauranga. The town of Whakatane is located in the centre of the coast, other towns of note include Waihi Beach, Katikati, Maketu, Pukehina Beach and Opotiki. Most of the population along the coast is concentrated in the western and central parts of the shore, the bay is a popular area for pleasure boating and game fishing, especially around the foot of the Coromandel Peninsula at the bays western end. The Port of Tauranga is New Zealands largest commercial port, handling large consignments of timber from the regions of the islands interior. The Bay of Plenty is a holiday destination due to the warm and sunny summer climate. Whale watching has become an attraction as the number of whales such as blue whales
29.
Taupo Volcanic Zone
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The Taupo Volcanic Zone is a highly active volcanic V-shaped area in the North Island of New Zealand that is spreading east–west at the rate of about 8 mm per year. It is named after Lake Taupo, the caldera of the largest volcano in the zone. There are numerous volcanic vents and geothermal fields in the zone, with Mount Ruapehu, Mount Ngauruhoe, the zones largest eruption since the arrival of Europeans was that of Mount Tarawera in 1886, which killed over 100 people. Early Maori would also have been affected by the much larger Kaharoa eruption from Tarawera around 1300 AD, the last major eruption from Lake Taupo, the Hatepe eruption, occurred in 181 AD. It is believed to have first emptied the lake then followed that feat with a flow that covered about 20,000 square kilometres of land with volcanic ash. A total of 120 km3 of material is believed to have been ejected, the date of this activity is known since the ash expulsion was sufficiently large to turn the sky red over Rome and China. Taupo erupted an estimated 1,170 km3 of material in its Oruanui eruption 26,500 years ago and this was Earths most recent eruption reaching VEI-8, the highest level on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. The Rotorua caldera has been dormant longer, with its main eruption occurring about 240,000 years ago, the Taupo Volcanic Zone is approximately 350 kilometres long by 50 kilometres wide. Mount Ruapehu marks its end, while the submarine Whakatane volcano is considered its northeastern limit. It forms a portion of the active Lau-Havre-Taupo back-arc basin. Although the back-arc basin continues to propagate to the southwest, with the South Wanganui Basin forming an initial back-arc basin, South of Kaikoura the plate boundary changes to a transform boundary with oblique continental collision uplifting the Southern Alps in the South Island. A subduction zone reappears southwest of Fiordland, at the corner of the South Island. Solander Island is an extinct volcano associated with subduction zone. Recent scientific work indicates that the Earths crust below the Taupo Volcanic Zone may be as little as 16 kilometres thick, a film of magma 50 kilometres wide and 160 kilometres long lies 10 kilometres under the surface. The geological record indicates some of the volcanoes in the area erupt infrequently but have large, violent. There is also some possible rifting in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, see also List of volcanoes in New Zealand#Taupo Volcanic Zone. The following Volcanic Centers belong to the Taupo Volcanic Zone, Rotorua, Okataina, Maroa, Taupo, Tongariro and Mangakino. The Okareka Embayment and the Tarawera Volcanic Complex are inside the Haroharo Caldera which in turn is inside the Okataina Ring Structure, from Newhall, the Waikato River course follows roughly the northern Maroa caldera rim on one side
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Earthquake
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An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earths lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to people around. The seismicity or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type, Earthquakes are measured using measurements from seismometers. The moment magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe and these two scales are numerically similar over their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially cause damage over larger areas. The largest earthquakes in historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an earthquake, the damage to structures it causes. At the Earths surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground, when the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity, in its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event — whether natural or caused by humans — that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts. An earthquakes point of rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter, tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of stick-slip behavior, once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the portion of the fault. This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface and this process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of a total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction
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2012 Kermadec Islands eruption and pumice raft
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The thickness of the raft may initially have been as high as 3.5 metres and was reduced to around 0.5 metres within a month. Three months after the eruption, the mass had dispersed into very dilute rafts, the eruption of the Havre Seamount was not initially noticed by scientists, and volcanologists were not even aware that the Havre Seamount was an active submarine volcano. Seismologists discovered a cluster of earthquakes that occurred 18–19 July 2012 and these earthquakes were consistent with magma rising into a magma chamber prior to eruption. Analysis of satellite imagery showed an ash plume appear on 18 July 2012, although some volcanologists initially believed that the eruption might have occurred at the Monowai Seamount, this possibility was later ruled out. It is also believed that the eruption was unrelated to the 2012 Te Māri eruption at New Zealands Mount Tongariro, in 2015 a scientific expedition set out to study changes of seafloor topography in the area surrounding Havre Seamount. The same group of researchers mapped the distribution of the floating pumice blocks driven by wind, ocean currents and she emailed her pictures to Dr Scott Bryan, Senior Research Fellow at Queensland University of Technology. After discussion it was ascertained that the raft was around 1,000 kilometres north of Auckland, Dr Bryan then contacted Olivier Hyvernaud from the Laboratoire de Géophysique, Tahiti, who confirmed the location from Terra/MODIS imagery from NASA. The raft was sighted by members of the New Zealand Defence Force on 9 August 2012—several weeks after the eruption had occurred. It was spotted by an Orion aircraft and then approached and sampled by the sealift ship HMNZS Canterbury. The pumice raft measured approximately 300 miles in length and more than 30 miles in width, an officer in the Royal Australian Navy was quoted as saying that it was the weirdest thing seen in 18 years at sea
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Pumice raft
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A pumice raft is a floating raft of pumice occasionally created by ocean-based or near-ocean volcanic activity. Biologists suggest that animals and plants have migrated from island to island on pumice rafts, astrobiologists have hypothetically linked pumice rafts to the origin of life. A large pumice raft appeared near New Zealand in August 2012 and it was reported to be 300 miles long,30 miles wide, and riding two feet above the surface. On 10 August 2012 a raft with an area of 10,000 sq miles was observed near Raoul Island. Volcanic activity in the South Pacific near Tonga on August 12,2006 caused the emergence of a new island and they went on to witness the ephemeral island known as Home Reef breaching the surface. Pumice rafts drifted to Fiji in 1979 and 1984 from eruptions around Tonga, curacoa volcano Floating island South China Sea Pumice
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Pumice
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Pumice, called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of highly vesicular rough textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. Scoria is another vesicular volcanic rock that differs from pumice in having larger vesicles, thicker walls and being dark colored. Pumice is created when super-heated, highly pressurized rock is violently ejected from a volcano, the unusual foamy configuration of pumice happens because of simultaneous rapid cooling and rapid depressurization. The depressurization creates bubbles by lowering the solubility of gases that are dissolved in the lava, the simultaneous cooling and depressurization freezes the bubbles in a matrix. Eruptions under water are cooled and the large volume of pumice created can be a shipping hazard for cargo ships. Pumice is composed of highly microvesicular glass pyroclastic with very thin and it is commonly, but not exclusively of silicic or felsic to intermediate in composition, but basaltic and other compositions are known. Pumice is commonly pale in color, ranging from white, cream, blue or grey and it forms when volcanic gases exsolving from viscous magma form bubbles that remain within the viscous magma as it cools to glass. Pumice is a product of explosive eruptions and commonly forms zones in upper parts of silicic lavas. Pumice has a porosity of 90%, and initially floats on water. Scoria differs from pumice in being denser, with larger vesicles and thicker vesicle walls, it sinks rapidly. The difference is the result of the viscosity of the magma that forms scoria. When larger amounts of gas are present, the result is a variety of pumice known as pumicite. Pumice is considered a glass because it has no crystal structure, pumice varies in density according to the thickness of the solid material between the bubbles, many samples float in water. After the explosion of Krakatoa, rafts of pumice drifted through the Pacific Ocean for up to 20 years, in fact, pumice rafts disperse and support several marine species. In 1979,1984 and 2006, underwater volcanic eruptions near Tonga created large pumice rafts, there are two main forms of vesicles. Most pumice contains tubular microvesicles that can impart a silky or fibrous fabric, the elongation of the microvesicles occurs due to ductile elongation in the volcanic conduit or, in the case of pumiceous lavas, during flow. The other form of vesicles are subspherical to spherical and result from high pressure during eruption. Pumice is widely used to make concrete or insulative low-density cinder blocks
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Remote sensing
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Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object and thus in contrast to on-site observation. It may be split into active remote sensing and passive remote sensing, passive sensors gather radiation that is emitted or reflected by the object or surrounding areas. Reflected sunlight is the most common source of radiation measured by passive sensors, examples of passive remote sensors include film photography, infrared, charge-coupled devices, and radiometers. Active collection, on the hand, emits energy in order to scan objects and areas whereupon a sensor then detects. RADAR and LiDAR are examples of remote sensing where the time delay between emission and return is measured, establishing the location, speed and direction of an object. Remote sensing makes it possible to data of dangerous or inaccessible areas. Remote sensing applications include monitoring deforestation in areas such as the Amazon Basin, glacial features in Arctic and Antarctic regions, military collection during the Cold War made use of stand-off collection of data about dangerous border areas. Remote sensing also replaces costly and slow data collection on the ground, the basis for multispectral collection and analysis is that of examined areas or objects that reflect or emit radiation that stand out from surrounding areas. For a summary of major remote sensing satellite systems see the overview table, conventional radar is mostly associated with aerial traffic control, early warning, and certain large scale meteorological data. Other types of active collection includes plasmas in the ionosphere, interferometric synthetic aperture radar is used to produce precise digital elevation models of large scale terrain. Laser and radar altimeters on satellites have provided a range of data. By measuring the bulges of water caused by gravity, they map features on the seafloor to a resolution of a mile or so, by measuring the height and wavelength of ocean waves, the altimeters measure wind speeds and direction, and surface ocean currents and directions. Ultrasound and radar tide gauges measure sea level, tides and wave direction in coastal, light detection and ranging is well known in examples of weapon ranging, laser illuminated homing of projectiles. Vegetation remote sensing is an application of LIDAR. Radiometers and photometers are the most common instrument in use, collecting reflected and emitted radiation in a range of frequencies. The most common are visible and infrared sensors, followed by microwave, gamma ray and rarely and they may also be used to detect the emission spectra of various chemicals, providing data on chemical concentrations in the atmosphere. Simultaneous multi-spectral platforms such as Landsat have been in use since the 1970s and these thematic mappers take images in multiple wavelengths of electro-magnetic radiation and are usually found on Earth observation satellites, including the Landsat program or the IKONOS satellite. Landsat images are used by agencies such as KYDOW to indicate water quality parameters including Secchi depth, chlorophyll a density
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HMNZS Canterbury (L421)
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HMNZS Canterbury is a multi-role vessel of the Royal New Zealand Navy. She was commissioned in June 2007, and is the ship of the Royal New Zealand Navy to carry the name. She is also New Zealands first purpose-built strategic sealift ship, however, the vessel has been plagued by problems since delivery, having been involved in a number of incidents and being considered less seaworthy than specified. It is estimated as of 2008 that at least another NZ$20 million will have to be spent to achieve the sought-for operational abilities, as early as 1988 the Royal New Zealand Navy had identified the need for some form of sealift in the South Pacific. In 1995, this led to the commissioning of HMNZS Charles Upham, the subsequent failure of successive governments to fund the required refits resulted in Charles Upham being sold in 2001. The keel was laid on 6 September 2005 and the MRV was launched successfully on 11 February 2006, the ship completed initial sea trials in the Netherlands and arrived in Australia in late August 2006 for fit-out with military equipment. Final acceptance was delayed due to alterations to the ships hospital, the MRV was accepted by the New Zealand Government on 31 May 2007 and commissioned on 12 June 2007 in Port Melbourne, Australia by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark. The ship cost NZ$130 million to construct, after commissioning, the ship sailed to its home port of Lyttelton arriving 28 June 2007. After several days of events, it departed again on 2 July. In September 2007, Canterbury embarked 250 troops and 50 vehicles, including 20 NZLAV armoured vehicles, in early 2011, it was announced that the ship would form the core asset of a joint Australia-New Zealand task force for disaster-relief operations. Coincidentally, the newly appointed disaster-relief ship was in the port of Lyttelton less than two weeks later during the devastating February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, the crew provided meals for 1,000 people left homeless in that town, and accommodation for a small number of locals. HMNZS Canterbury was the first ship to take samples from a 7. After the earthquake on 14 November 2016, HMNZS Canterbury was deployed to provide relief for Kaikoura, the ship delivered supplies from Port Lyttleton to Kaikoura and evacuated Foreign tourists back to Port Lyttleton. Kaikoura airport has a short runway, unsuitable for medium to large aircraft. As a sealift ship, Canterbury is not intended to enter combat, the ships armament consists of a single 25 mm M242 Bushmaster cannon fitted to an MSI DS25 stabilised mount, two.50 calibre machine guns, and a number of small arms. These are intended for self-defence against other smaller craft, and for patrol duties during a naval blockade. Cargo The ship has space of 1,451 square metres. The ship is equipped to embark up to eight containers of ammunition, Landing Craft The ship also carries two Landing Craft, Medium
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Ecoregion
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An ecoregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than an ecozone. All three of these are less or greater than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, the biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches, firstly, no single bio-geographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possible, secondly, ecoregion boundaries rarely form abrupt edges, rather, ecotones and mosaic habitats bound them. Thirdly, most ecoregions contain habitats that differ from their assigned biome, biogeographic provinces may originate due to various barriers. Some physical, some climatic and some ocean chemical related, the history of the term is somewhat vague as it was used in many contexts, forest classifications, biome classifications, biogeographic classifications, etc. The concept of ecoregion of Bailey gives more importance to ecological criteria, while the WWF concept gives more importance to biogeography, there is significant, but not absolute, spatial correlation among these characteristics, making the delineation of ecoregions an imperfect science. Such transition zones are called ecotones, Ecoregions can be categorized using an algorithmic approach or a holistic, “weight-of-evidence” approach where the importance of various factors may vary. An example of the approach is Robert Bailey’s work for the U. S. The intended purpose of ecoregion delineation may affect the method used, according to WWF, the boundaries of an ecoregion approximate the original extent of the natural communities prior to any major recent disruptions or changes. WWF has identified 867 terrestrial ecoregions, and approximately 450 freshwater ecoregions across the Earth, the use of the term ecoregion is an outgrowth of a surge of interest in ecosystems and their functioning. In particular, there is awareness of issues relating to spatial scale in the study and it is widely recognized that interlinked ecosystems combine to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by WWF as priorities for conservation, Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater and marine ecoregions. In this context, terrestrial is used to mean of land, WWF ecologists currently divide the land surface of the Earth into 8 major ecozones containing 867 smaller terrestrial ecoregions. The WWF effort is a synthesis of previous efforts to define. Many consider this classification to be decisive, and some propose these as stable borders for bioregional democracy initiatives. The eight terrestrial ecozones follow the major floral and faunal boundaries, identified by botanists and zoologists, ecozone boundaries generally follow continental boundaries, or major barriers to plant and animal distribution, like the Himalayas and the Sahara
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Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests
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The biome includes several types of forests, Lowland equatorial evergreen rain forests, commonly known as tropical rainforests, are forests which receive high rainfall throughout the year. These forests occur in a belt around the equator, with the largest areas in the Amazon basin of South America, the Congo basin of central Africa, some trees in these forests drop some or all of their leaves during the winter dry season. These forests are found in parts of South America, in Central America and around the Caribbean, in coastal West Africa, parts of the Indian subcontinent, montane rain forests, are found in cooler-climate mountainous areas. Those with elevations high enough to regularly encounter low-level cloud cover are known as cloud forests, flooded forests, including freshwater swamp forests and peat swamp forests. In contrast to TSMF, tropical forest regions with lower levels of rainfall are home to tropical dry broadleaf forests, temperate rain forests also occur in certain humid temperate coastal regions. Rainforests now cover less than 6% of Earths land surface, scientists estimate that more than half of all the worlds plant and animal species live in tropical rain forests
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Oceania ecozone
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The Oceanian realm is one of the World Wildlife Fund-WWF biogeographic realms, and is unique in not including any continental land mass. It is the smallest in area of the WWF realms. This realm includes the islands of the Pacific Ocean in, Micronesia, the Fijian Islands, the Hawaiian islands, New Zealand, Australia, and most of Melanesia including New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia are included within the Australasian realm. Oceania is geologically the youngest realm and they were created either by hotspot volcanism, or as island arcs pushed upward by the collision and subduction of tectonic plates. The islands range from tiny islets, sea stacks and coral atolls to large islands, like Hawaii. The climate of Oceanias islands is tropical or subtropical, and range from humid to seasonally dry, hawaiis high volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, are home to some rare tropical Montane grasslands and shrublands. Since the islands of Oceania were never connected by land to a continent, once they reached the islands, the ancestors of Oceanias present flora and fauna adapted to life on the islands. Other adaptations to island ecologies include gigantism, dwarfism, and among birds, land plants disperse by several different means. Pandanus trees are ubiquitous across Oceania. Easter Island has some plants from South America such as the totora reed, dispersal across the ocean is difficult for most land animals, and Oceania has relatively few indigenous land animals compared to other realms. Birds are relatively common, including many seabirds and some species of birds whose ancestors may have been blown out to sea by storms. Some birds evolved into flightless species after their ancestors arrived, including species of rails. A number of islands have indigenous lizards, including geckoes and skinks, with the exception of bats, which live on most of the island groups, there are few if any indigenous mammal species in Oceania. Many animal and plant species have been introduced by humans in two main waves, malayo-Polynesian settlers brought pigs, dogs, chickens and polynesian rats to many islands, and had spread across the whole of Oceania by 1200 CE. From the seventeenth century onwards European settlers brought other animals, including cats, cattle, horses, small Asian mongoose, sheep, goats, the arrival of humans on these island groups often resulted in disruption of the indigenous ecosystems and waves of species extinctions. The island, once lushly forested, is now mostly windswept grasslands, more recently, Guams native bird and lizard species were decimated by the introduction of the brown tree snake in the 1940s
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Metrosideros kermadecensis
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The tree produces a brilliant display of red flowers, made up of a mass of stamens and is the dominant forest tree on Raoul Island, growing to 15 m or more. The trunk is up to 1 m or more in diameter and it is very similar to, and often confused with, the pōhutukawa of mainland New Zealand, differing mainly by having smaller, more oval leaves, and by flowering throughout the year. It also resembles the ʻōhiʻa lehua of Hawaiʻi, because it is endemic to a small group of islands, Metrosideros kermadecensis is listed as range restricted, but is not regarded as threatened. Metrosideros kermadecensis is widely cultivated in New Zealand and has naturalised in Hawaiʻi, a variegated form is widely planted in home gardens. Propagation is easy from fresh seed, cuttings may be grown from water shoots. Pōhutukawa & Rātā, New Zealands Iron-Hearted Trees
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Metrosideros excelsa
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The pōhutukawa is one of twelve Metrosideros species endemic to New Zealand. The blossom of the tree is called kahika, the generic name Metrosideros derives from the Ancient Greek metra or heartwood and sideron or iron. The species name excelsa is from Latin excelsus, highest, sublime and its closest equivalent in other Polynesian languages is the Cook Island Māori word poutukava, referring to a coastal shrub with white berries, Sophora tomentosa. The -hutu- part of the word comes from *futu, the Polynesian name for the fish-poison tree, the pōhutukawa grows up to 25 metres high, with a spreading, dome-like form. It usually grows as a spreading tree. Its trunks and branches are sometimes festooned with matted, fibrous aerial roots, the oblong, leathery leaves are covered in dense white hairs underneath. The tree flowers from November to January with a peak in mid to late December, with brilliant crimson flowers covering the tree, there is variation between individual trees in the timing of flowering, and in the shade and brightness of the flowers. Pōhutukawa wood is dense, strong and highly figured, maori used it for beaters and other small, heavy items. It was frequently used in shipbuilding, since the naturally curvy shapes made strong knees, by the 1990s, pastoral farming and introduced pests had reduced pōhutukawa forests by over 90%. It also occurs naturally on the shores of lakes in the Rotorua area, a giant pōhutukawa at Te Araroa on the East Coast is reputed to be the largest in the country, with a height of 20 metres and a spread of 38 metres. The tree is renowned as a cliff-dweller, able to maintain a hold in precarious, like its Hawaiian relative the ʻōhiʻa lehua, the pōhutukawa has shown itself to be efficient in the colonisation of lava plains – notably on Rangitoto, a volcanic island in the Hauraki Gulf. In New Zealand, the pōhutukawa is under threat from browsing by the common brushtail possum which strips the tree of its leaves. The pōhutukawa is popular in cultivation, and there are examples in most North Island coastal cities. Vigorous and easy to grow, the tree flourishes well south of its natural range and it has also naturalised on Norfolk Island to the north. The pōhutukawa has been introduced to countries with mild-to-warm climates, including south-eastern Australia. In coastal California, it is a street and lawn tree. In parts of South Africa, the pōhutukawa grows so well that it is regarded as an invasive species, the Spanish city of A Coruña has adopted the pōhutukawa as a floral emblem. At least 39 cultivars of pōhutukawa have been released, duncan & Davies nurseries were a leading force in the mid-20th century, while Graeme Platt has been responsible for 16 different cultivars so far, including a rare white-flowering tree
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Vascular plant
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They also have a specialized non-lignified tissue to conduct products of photosynthesis. Vascular plants include the clubmosses, horsetails, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms, scientific names for the group include Tracheophyta and Tracheobionta. Vascular plants are distinguished by two characteristics, Vascular plants have vascular tissues which distribute resources through the plant. This feature allows vascular plants to evolve to a larger size than non-vascular plants, in vascular plants, the principal generation phase is the sporophyte, which is usually diploid with two sets of chromosomes per cell. Only the germ cells and gametophytes are haploid, by contrast, the principal generation phase in non-vascular plants is the gametophyte, which is haploid with one set of chromosomes per cell. In these plants, only the spore stalk and capsule are diploid, in other words, elaboration of the spore stalk enabled the production of more spores, and enabled the development of the ability to release them higher and to broadcast them farther. Such developments may include more photosynthetic area for the structure, the ability to grow independent roots, woody structure for support. A proposed phylogeny of the plants after Kenrick and Crane is as follows. Pteridophyta from Smith et al. and lycophytes and ferns by Christenhusz et al and this phylogeny is supported by several molecular studies. Other researchers state that taking fossils into account leads to different conclusions, water and nutrients in the form of inorganic solutes are drawn up from the soil by the roots and transported throughout the plant by the xylem. Organic compounds such as produced by photosynthesis in leaves are distributed by the phloem sieve tube elements. The xylem consists of vessels in flowering plants and tracheids in other vascular plants, a tracheid cell wall usually contains the polymer lignin. The phloem however consists of living cells called sieve-tube members, between the sieve-tube members are sieve plates, which have pores to allow molecules to pass through. Sieve-tube members lack such organs as nuclei or ribosomes, but cells next to them, the most abundant compound in all plants, as in all cellular organisms, is water which serves an important structural role and a vital role in plant metabolism. Transpiration is the process of water movement within plant tissues. Water is constantly transpired from the plant through its stomata to the atmosphere, the movement of water out of the leaf stomata creates a transpiration pull or tension in the water column in the xylem vessels or tracheids. The pull is the result of surface tension within the cell walls of the mesophyll cells. The draw of water upwards may be passive and can be assisted by the movement of water into the roots via osmosis
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Endemic (ecology)
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The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, native. Endēmos is formed of en meaning in, and dēmos meaning the people, the term, precinctive, has been suggested by some scientists, and was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of endemism, precinction was perhaps first used by Frank and McCoy. That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks, physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa. The glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska, political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or actively hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism, paleoendemism and neoendemism, paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization. Endemics can easily become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, there were millions of both Bermuda petrels and Bermuda cedars in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct, cedars, already ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare, as are species endemic to Bermuda
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New Zealand
Cook Islands
Niue
Tokelau
