Native name: Nepeyan Ailen | |
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Geography | |
Location | Pacific Ocean |
Coordinates | 29°4′16″S167°57′50″E / 29.07111°S 167.96389°E Coordinates: 29°4′16″S167°57′50″E / 29.07111°S 167.96389°E |
Area | 10 ha (25 acres) |
Administration | |
Demographics | |
Population | 0 |
Additional information | |
Time zone |
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Nepean Island (Norfuk: Nepeyan Ailen) is a small uninhabited island located about 800 metres (870 yards) south of Norfolk Island in the Southwest Pacific. The island is about 10 hectares (25 acres) in area. [1] Nepean Island is uninhabited due to its small size and tall cliffs flanking it, making landfall nearly impossible for small boats. It is part of the Commonwealth of Australia's external territory of Norfolk Island, and is included in the Norfolk Island National Park as is nearby Phillip Island and about 10 percent of Norfolk Island proper.
Unlike Norfolk and Phillip Islands, Nepean is not volcanic in origin, but is Late Pleistocene limestone formed from wind blown sand dunes between the last two ice ages. Calcareous sand grains were bound by carbonate cement to form a calcarenite limestone. [2] [1]
Although Polynesian people were known to have settled around Kingston, no evidence of Polynesian settlement has been found on Nepean Island. The island was first cleared during the First Settlement. [1] Nepean was used as a quarry and for timber during the Second Convict Settlement of Norfolk Island, and was abandoned as a site during that settlement. [1] Remaining stone steps can be seen on the east coast. [1]
It is thought the island was named in 1788 by Lieutenant Philip Gidley King for Evan Nepean, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who was involved with arrangements for the dispatch of the First Fleet and with administration of the colony of New South Wales during its early years. [3] [1]
The island is made of calcareous rock dating from the late Pleistocene and is a breeding site for several species of seabirds. [1] Before being cleared in the 1790s, the island was home to about 200 Norfolk Island Pines. Today, native plants present on the island include pigface, native spinach, moo-oo, native flax and native rush. [1] The masked booby breeds onsite during the summer. From July to December little shearwaters breed on the island. Other birds such as the whale bird, grey noddy, black noddy, wedge-tailed shearwater, brown noddy and red-tailed tropicbird also breed on Nepean Island. It is a refuge for the endemic marbled gecko, which is now extinct on Norfolk Island. It is also home to the Phillip Island skink. [1] The island is home to little nipper landcrabs and freshwater crabs. Green turtles are often seen off the coast of the island. [1]
Norfolk Island is an external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, 1,412 kilometres (877 mi) directly east of Australia's Evans Head and about 900 kilometres (560 mi) from Lord Howe Island. Together with the neighbouring Phillip Island and Nepean Island, the three islands collectively form the Territory of Norfolk Island. At the 2016 census, it had 1748 inhabitants living on a total area of about 35 km2 (14 sq mi). Its capital is Kingston.
Ducie Island is an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Islands. It lies east of Pitcairn Island, and east of Henderson Island, and has a total area of 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2), which includes the lagoon. It is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, measured northeast to southwest, and about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide. The island is composed of four islets: Acadia, Pandora, Westward and Edwards.
Mānana Island is an uninhabited islet located 0.75 mi (1.21 km) off Kaupō Beach, near Makapuʻu at the eastern end of the island of Oʻahu in the Hawaiian Islands. In the Hawaiian language, mānana means "buoyant". The islet is commonly referred to as Rabbit Island, because its shape as seen from the nearby Oʻahu shore looks something like a rabbit's head and because it was once inhabited by introduced rabbits. The rabbit colony was established by John Adams Cummins in the 1880s when he ran the nearby Waimānalo plantation. The rabbits were eradicated about a hundred years later because they were destroying the native ecosystem, an important seabird breeding area.
The short-tailed shearwater or slender-billed shearwater, also called yolla or moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia, is the most abundant seabird species in Australian waters, and is one of the few Australian native birds in which the chicks are commercially harvested. It is a migratory species that breeds mainly on small islands in Bass Strait and Tasmania and migrates to the Northern Hemisphere for the boreal summer.
Takutea is a small uninhabited island in the Cook Islands, 21 kilometres north-west of Atiu. Administratively, the island is considered part of Atiu, the closest island. It is owned equally by all inhabitants of Atiu and not allocated to one specific village or district of Atiu.
Cousin Island is a small granitic island of the Seychelles, lying 2 km (1.2 mi) west of Praslin. It is a nature reserve protected under Seychelles law as a Special Reserve. It is managed by Nature Seychelles, a national nonprofit organization and Partner of BirdLife International, by which it has been identified as an Important Bird Area.
Buller's shearwater is a Pacific species of seabird in the family Procellariidae; it is also known as the grey-backed shearwater or New Zealand shearwater. A member of the black-billed wedge-tailed Thyellodroma group, among the larger shearwaters of the genus Ardenna, it forms a superspecies with the wedge-tailed shearwater.
Preservation Island is a low and undulating granite and calcarenite island, with an area of 207 ha, in south-eastern Australia. It is part of Tasmania’s Preservation Island Group, lying in eastern Bass Strait south-west of Cape Barren Island in the Furneaux Group, and is an important historic site.
Phillip Island is an island located 6 km (3.7 mi) south of Norfolk Island in the Southwest Pacific, and is part of the Norfolk Island group. It was named in 1788 by Lieutenant Philip Gidley King after Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales. Phillip Island is part of the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, and is included in Norfolk Island National Park, as is neighbouring Nepean Island and about 10 percent of Norfolk Island proper.
Tamala Limestone is the geological name given to the widely occurring eolianite limestone deposits on the western coastline of Western Australia, between Shark Bay in the north and nearly to Albany in the south. The rock consists of calcarenite wind-blown shell fragments and quartz sand which accumulated as coastal sand dunes during the middle and late Pleistocene and early Holocene eras. As a result of a process of sedimentation and water percolating through the shelly sands, the mixture later lithified when the lime content dissolved to cement the grains together.
Kurkar is the term used in Palestinian Arabic and modern Hebrew for the rock type of which lithified sea sand dunes consist. The equivalent term used in Lebanon is ramleh.
The East Kangaroo Island, part of the Big Green Group within the Furneaux Group, is a 157-hectare (390-acre) unpopulated limestone island with granite outcrops and dolerite dykes, located in the Bass Strait, west of the Flinders Island, in Tasmania, in south-eastern Australia.
The Big Green Island, part of the Big Green Group within the Furneaux Group, is a 122-hectare (300-acre) granite island with limestone and dolerite outcrops, located in Bass Strait west of Flinders Island, in Tasmania, in south-eastern Australia. The island is partly contained within a nature reserve with the rest being used for farming; and is part of the Chalky, Big Green and Badger Island Groups Important Bird Area.
Fa'ahia is an early Polynesian occupation site in the north-east of the island of Huahine, in the Society Islands, French Polynesia. With the neighbouring Vaito'otia site, it dates to between 700 CE and 1200 CE. Because much of the site is waterlogged, artefacts made of organic materials have been well preserved, including wooden patu hand clubs, canoe parts and adze handles.
Griffiths Island, sometimes incorrectly spelled as Griffith Island or Griffitts Island, lies at the mouth of the Moyne River next to, and within the bounds of, the town of Port Fairy, in the Western District of the state of Victoria in Australia. Griffiths now has no permanent inhabitants, but is connected to the mainland by a causeway and is accessible on foot. It forms part of the Port Fairy and Belfast Coastline Protection Reserve and, as well as being a tourist attraction, is an important site in the context of the history of European settlement of western Victoria. It is managed by the Moyne Shire Council.
The Western Polynesian tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion in Polynesia. It includes Tuvalu, the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati, Tokelau, and Howland and Baker islands, which are possessions of the United States.