Edwards Island, also known as Edward Island, is an island in Western Australia near Lancelin.
Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, and the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres, and the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.
Lancelin is a small fishing and tourist town 127 km north of Perth, Western Australia. It is within the Shire of Gingin at the end of Wanneroo Road, and a few kilometres from the start of the Indian Ocean Drive.
The island occupies an area of 0.454 hectares (1 acre) with a maximum elevation of 5 metres (16 ft) and is situated approximately 100 metres (328 ft) off the coast. [1] It is composed of limestone and is linked to Lancelin Island by intertidal and subtidal reef platforms. Both islands are gazetted as A Class nature reserves. [2]
Limestone is a carbonate sedimentary rock that is often composed of the skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, foraminifera, and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). A closely related rock is dolomite, which contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, CaMg(CO3)2. In old USGS publications, dolomite was referred to as magnesian limestone, a term now reserved for magnesium-deficient dolomites or magnesium-rich limestones.
Lancelin Island is an island in Western Australia near Lancelin.
A reef is a bar of rock, sand, coral or similar material, lying beneath the surface of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes—deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock outcrops, etc.—but the best known reefs are the coral reefs of tropical waters developed through biotic processes dominated by corals and coralline algae.
Along with Lancelin Island it is at the southern end of the Turquoise Coast islands nature reserve group, a chain of 40 islands spread over a distance of 150 kilometres (93 mi). [1]
Turquoise Coast is a name attributed to a section of the coastline of Western Australia in the vicinity of Jurien Bay.
The first European to discover the island was the French explorer Hamelin in 1801 aboard the Naturalist, who named Lancelin Island. [3]
Baron Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin was a rear admiral of the French navy and later a Baron. He commanded numerous naval expeditions and battles with the British Navy as well as exploratory voyages in the Indian Ocean and the South Seas.
