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The Kenn Plateau is a large piece of submerged continental crust off northeastern Australia that rifted from northeastern Australia about 63-52 mya, along with other nearby parts of the Zealandia continent.
The geography of New Caledonia (Nouvelle-Calédonie), an overseas collectivity of France located in the subregion of Melanesia, makes the continental island group unique in the southwest Pacific. Among other things, the island chain has played a role in preserving unique biological lineages from the Mesozoic. It served as a waystation in the expansion of the predecessors of the Polynesians, the Lapita culture. Under the Free French it was a vital naval base for Allied Forces during the War in the Pacific.
The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about 2,000 km (1,200 mi) across and about 2,800 km (1,700 mi) from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who in 1642 was the first known person to cross it. British explorer Lieutenant James Cook later extensively navigated the Tasman Sea in the 1770s during his three voyages of exploration.
The Coral Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) down the Australian northeast coast. Most of it is protected by the French Natural Park of the Coral Sea and the Australian Coral Sea Marine Park. The sea was the location for the Battle of the Coral Sea, a major confrontation during World War II between the navies of the Empire of Japan, and the United States and Australia.
The Lord Howe Rise is a deep sea plateau which extends from south west of New Caledonia to the Challenger Plateau, west of New Zealand in the south west of the Pacific Ocean. To its west is the Tasman Basin and to the east is the New Caledonia Basin. Lord Howe Rise has a total area of about 1,500,000 km2 (580,000 sq mi), and generally lies about 750 to 1,200 metres under water. It is part of Zealandia, a much larger continent that is now mostly submerged, and so is composed of continental crust. Some have included the 3,500 m (11,500 ft) deep New Caledonia Basin as within the rise, given its continental crust origin, and this would give a larger total area of 1,950,000 km2 (750,000 sq mi).
The New Zealand outlying islands are nine offshore island groups that are part of New Zealand, with all but Solander Islands lying beyond the 12nm limit of the mainland's territorial waters. Although considered integral parts of New Zealand, seven of the nine island groups are not part of any administrative region or district, but are instead each designated as an Area Outside Territorial Authority. The two exceptions are the Chatham Islands, which are covered by their own special territorial authority, and the Solander Islands, which are part of the Southland Region and Southland District.
The Challenger Plateau is a large submarine plateau west of New Zealand and south of the Lord Howe Rise. It has an approximate diameter of 500 km (310 mi) and an area of about 280,000 km2 (110,000 sq mi). The water depth over the plateau varies between 500 m (1,600 ft) to 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and is covered by up to 3,500 m (11,500 ft) of sedimentary rocks of Upper Cretaceous to recent in age. The plateau originated in the Gondwanan breakup and is one of the five major submerged parts of Zealandia, a largely submerged continent.
The Norfolk Ridge is a long submarine ridge running between New Caledonia and New Zealand, about 1300 km off the east-coast of Australia.
The Lord Howe Seamount Chain formed during the Miocene. It features many coral-capped guyots and is one of the two parallel seamount chains alongside the east coast of Australia; the Lord Howe and Tasmantid seamount chains both run north-south through parts of the Coral Sea and Tasman Sea. These chains have longitudes of approximately 159°E and 156°E respectively.
The Torlesse Composite Terrane is a plate tectonic terrane forming part of the South Island of New Zealand. It contains the Rakaia, Aspiring and Pahau Terranes and the Esk Head Belt. Greywacke is the dominant rock type of the composite terrane; argillite is less common and there are minor basalt occurrences. The Torlesse Composite Terrane is found east of the Alpine Fault in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Its southern extent is a cryptic boundary with the Caples Terrane within the Haast Schists in Central Otago. It is named for the Torlesse Range in Canterbury.
The natural history of New Zealand began when the landmass Zealandia broke away from the supercontinent Gondwana in the Cretaceous period. Before this time, Zealandia shared its past with Australia and Antarctica. Since this separation, the New Zealand landscape has evolved in physical isolation, although much of its current biota has more recent connections with species on other landmasses. The exclusively natural history of the country ended in about 1300 AD, when humans first settled, and the country's environmental history began. The period from 1300 AD to today coincides with the extinction of many of New Zealand's unique species that had evolved there.
Continental crustal fragments, partly synonymous with microcontinents, are pieces of continents that have broken off from main continental masses to form distinct islands that are often several hundred kilometers from their place of origin.
Zealandia is a nearly submerged continental mass, of which New Zealand comprises the vast majority of the above-water part.
Gondwana was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia, and the Indian Subcontinent.
Zealandia, also known as Te Riu-a-Māui (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust in Oceania that subsided after breaking away from Gondwana 83–79 million years ago. It has been described variously as a submerged continent, continental fragment, and microcontinent. The name and concept for Zealandia was proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, and satellite imagery shows it to be almost the size of Australia. A 2021 study suggests Zealandia is over a billion years old, about twice as old as geologists previously thought.
A continent is any of several large geographical regions. Continents are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single landmass or a part of a very large landmass, as in the case of Asia or Europe. Due to this, the number of continents varies; up to seven or as few as four geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Most English-speaking countries recognize seven regions as continents. In order from largest to smallest in area, these seven regions are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Different variations with fewer continents merge some of these regions; examples of this are merging North America and South America into America, Asia and Europe into Eurasia, and Africa, Asia, and Europe into Afro-Eurasia.
Kenn Reef is a submerged coral atoll off the Pacific coast of Queensland, Australia. It is about 15 by 8 km and appears as either a backward facing "L" or a boot. The reef covers an area of approximately 40 km2, with an islet in the Southeast part of the reef called Observatory Cay which is approximately 2 m above the high tide level
A submerged continent or a sunken continent is a region of continental crust, extensive in size but mainly undersea. The terminology is used by some paleogeologists and geographers in reference to some landmasses.
The Cato Trough or Chesterfield Trough is an oceanic trough in the Coral Sea of the South Pacific Ocean. It separates the continental crust of Australia and Zealandia to within 25 km (16 mi) and has a depth of 3,600 m (11,800 ft). The trough is underlain by oceanic crust, having formed as a result of seafloor spreading from about 63 to 50 million years ago.
Zealandia is an area of mostly submerged continental crust that contains New Zealand and New Caledonia.
The Three Kings Ridge, sometimes known as Three Kings Rise and more rarely at its southern end as the Three Kings Bank is a deep sea westward facing volcanic arc of Zealandia continental crust extending from 55 kilometres (34 mi) northwest of Cape Reinga / Te Rerenga Wairua, New Zealand on a line bisecting New Caledonia and Fiji in the South Pacific Ocean. Its southern portion contains the Manawatāwhi / Three Kings Islands which have biological significance as they are host to unique species and important marine ecosystems.
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