It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

On September 29, 2009, just south of the islands that make up the Independent State of Samoa in Polynesia, an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Moment Magnitude scale occurred, which generated a tsunami that swept across the nearby islands killing at least 149 people.

Most of the victims were on Samoa itself, where reports of a wave between 3 and 10 metres have emerged. Many low-lying areas in the Samoan islands have been completely destroyed, including the Prime Minister’s home village of Lepa.

Several other Polynesian islands were affected including the Unincorporated U.S. Territory of American Samoa to the east, where they lost at least 25 people, and to the south Tonga, where 6 people are so far known to have died.

Just 16 hours after the Samoan tsunami, another large earthquake occurred just off the southern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. This eruption registered a lower moment magnitude reading of 7.6, but even without a tsunami has still claimed at least 1,100 lives.

Separated by 9,749 km, these two earthquakes were unrelated. They also lie on separate faults; Samoa sits just north of the Tonga Trench, and Sumatra is located on one of the world’s most active fault lines, the Great Sumatran fault.

What the two earthquakes do share however, is that all the affected islands fall within the Pacific Ring of Fire, a 40,000 km long horseshoe-shaped region that is defined by a nearly continuous path of volcanic features, including 452 volcanoes. 75% of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes are located within the region, and together they are responsible for about 90% of the world’s earthquakes.

More information is available at Wikipedia about the 2009 Samoa earthquake, the 2009 Padang earthquake, and the Pacific Ring of Fire.

It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

GSS Reader Reg Coppicus from Canada thinks Isla San Felix might be “the crappiest posting ever”. Fortunately for us, he’s talking military posting – this remote island in the South Pacific, he says, is home to:

an airstrip, some sea birds and nothing else.

Come on Reg, you’re being unfair. Look – there’s plenty to keep the chaps of the Chilean Navy occupied here at the San Felix Naval Air Station, located on one of the attractively named Islas Desventuradas (Unfortunate Islands). As well as the 2km-long runway there are quite a few buildings, some roads, and best of all a tennis court, plus what looks to be some other kind of sports field¹ just to the north. Just as well, considering these rugged islands are some 900km off the coast of Chile and otherwise totally uninhabited.

Indeed, San Felix looks like a throbbing metropolis compared with tiny Malpelo Island, which belongs to Colombia although it is actually slightly closer (360km) to the coast of Panama. Malpelo appears to support just one building² – an army outpost established in 1986. Those long evenings must just fly by.

Because of the minimal human intrusion, Malpelo is an important marine reserve – the largest no-fishing zone in the tropical eastern Pacific. In 2006 it was named as a World Heritage Site by Unesco, which calls it “a ‘reservoir’ for sharks, giant grouper and billfish“. It is a popular destination with shark divers, who apparently find the prospect of immersing themselves with “aggregations of over 200 hammerhead sharks and over 1,000 silky sharks, whale sharks and tuna” appealing…

Read more about the Islas Desventuradas and Malpelo Island at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Reg Coppicus.

It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

The last remaining fragments of the formerly immense French Empire in North America are the islands which make up the Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, located 25km off the coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland.

Of the eight islands which make up the archipelago, only Saint Pierre and Miquelon-Langlade are inhabited today, though history traces populations back to the early 16th century, and possibly even earlier. Control of the islands switched between England and France numerous times before France took permanent ownership in 1815.

Saint Pierre houses the capital (of the same name) of the collectivity, and the bulk of the population – about 5,500 people. Five much smaller islands off the north and east coasts are also part of the territory.

The waterfront of Saint Pierre is dominated by the Customs House and General Charles de Gaulle Square where the Tricolor is raised on Bastille Day.

Miquelon-Langlade comprises two formerly separate islands now joined by a 12km long sandspit called La Dune, which local lore explains was built up by the 500 ships which wrecked in the area.

Despite their larger size, these islands are home to less than 700 permanent residents on Miquelon. The last remaining Langlade resident passed away a couple of years ago, though many islanders do keep summer homes here.

The sandbar also protects Grand Barachois – a large lagoon on Miquelon which supports a colony of seals and other wildlife.

The collectivity has been a sore point for Canada on occasion. During World War II, Canada contemplated invading the islands when they were suspected of assisting German submarines. More recently a conflict over fishing rights had to be resolved by the International Court of Arbitration, which awarded France territory surrounding the islands in addition to 19km wide corridor stretching 370km to the south.

To help preserve fishing as a traditional way of life, the government built Les Salines – cabins where fishermen keep their boats and process their catches.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon is renowned as the only place in North America where Euros are legal tender¹, and for the quality of the baguettes, for which French flour is specially imported!

The islands have a couple of notable historical moments: In 1889 a convicted murderer became the only person ever to be executed by guillotine in North America. And from 1920 to 1933, they experienced a significant period of economic prosperity caused by alcohol smuggling during Prohibition in the US.

Thanks to Rob Shostak, Thomas Paul and Josh Simons.

It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

Far out in the South Atlantic, more than 2,500km from the coast of South Africa, Bouvet Island is the loneliest chunk of land on Earth. With the exception of a few tiny rocks just offshore, its nearest neighbour is Antarctica, 1,750km to the south. Despite being so remote, and totally uninhabited¹, it is covered by some beautiful high-resolution imagery.

Bouvet Island is a dependency of Norway, although it was discovered by (and named after) a Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier, in 1739. It’s a volcanic island, almost entirely covered by snow and ice — you can make out the central crater surrounded by cloud-covered peaks, with the highest, Olavtoppen, casting a shadow from the northeast.

Landing here is a very tricky prospect, unless your ship’s equipment includes a helicopter: the coastline mainly consists of high cliffs, with stormy seas foaming at the base and carving out sheer stacks of rock. In places, glaciers tumble over the edge in jagged blocks of ice, while submerged rocks lie in wait for unwary sailors. It’s no surprise that the island remains uninhabited, although a group of hardy Norwegians did spend a whole month there in the 1920s, confirming the nation’s claim on the island.

It seems Bouvet is still volcanically active. During the 1950s, an eruption on the west coast created a low shelf of lava — just about the only convenient flat spot on the island. The Norwegian Polar Institute installed a research station there in 1994 for use during field trips to the island, but by 2007 (and on Google’s pictures) no trace of it remained. The official story is that an earthquake caused a landslide that swept the portable building away — or broke the guy lines that anchored it, allowing gales to blow it into the sea — but bearing in mind that Bouvet Island was the setting for the 2004 film Alien vs Predator, the real explanation seems obvious…

One final mystery: can anyone tell us why, according to the map at Wikipedia, this headland is called Cape Circumcision?

It’s Island Week 4 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

North Brother Island, home to many decaying and abandoned structures, sits just off shore of New York’s Manhattan borough in the East River. Now home to a few crumbling Gothic buildings, it once housed the Riverside Hospital, and is undoubtedly the creepiest island in New York City.

Largely ignored until the late 19th century, North Brother Island did not see permanent settlement until the construction of the Riverside Hospital was completed in 1885. The hospital was built to house those suffering from infections diseases like cholera, typhoid, and smallpox as well as a constantly rotating staff of doctors and nurses.

In order to keep the island’s patients from infecting the rest of the city’s population, it was kept relatively isolated – a small ferry was the only mode of transport for hospital staff and supplies.

As the island’s population grew, additional dormitories and a tuberculosis pavilion were constructed. At its height during an 1892 typhus outbreak, North Brother Island held over 1,200 patients, many housed in makeshift tents.

Perhaps the most infamous patient of the Riverside Hospital was Mary Mallon, known as Typhoid Mary. A cook at various Manhattan restaurants in the early 1900s, Mary also carried Typhoid. After infecting a total of 53 people she was committed to Riverside Hospital and lived out the rest of her life in an isolated cottage on the island.

Riverside Hospital continued to treat victims of infectious disease and later, drug addiction, until it was permanently shut down in 1963 due to a staff corruption scandal. Over the past 40 years, North Brother has been left to decay into its current horror-movie-esque state and is now off limits to the public.

For more information and some great pictures, check out this blog.

Thanks to Edvado, yusaku and Katerina Korch.