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.

Clipperton Island, one of the most remote land masses on earth, is an uninhabited coral atoll under French authority, located in the Eastern Pacific Ocean approximately 1,120 kilometres south west of Mexico.

The island was named for John Clipperton, an English pirate who visited the island briefly in the 18th century and may have used it to hide treasure… which so far has never been found!¹

12 kilometres in diameter, the ring-shaped island completely encloses a stagnant freshwater lagoon with many deep basins. One of these, known as “the bottomless hole,” contains an extremely high concentration of sulphuric acid, making Clipperton a less than desirable vacation destination.

Add to that a severe lack of fresh water and an abundance of poisonous land crabs – and Clipperton Island shapes up to be the perfect location for an evil super-villain’s island fortress of doom!

Though uninhabited today, at its peak around 1914 Clipperton was home to a group of 100 men, women and children, and was the site of a booming guano-mining² operation.

Only three years later, only 10 women and children remained – thanks to a lack of supplies and a homicidal lighthouse keeper. Since then the island has only been visited periodically by French military patrols and the occasional scientific expedition.

(It’s Island Week 2 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.)

Located in the south eastern Pacific Ocean, almost four thousand kilometers from continental Chile, Easter Island – or locally Rapa Nui – is one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands¹, as well as one of the world’s most fascinating archaeological sites.

Photo of Rano Raraku Moai from mappic.org

The human history of Easter Island probably began somewhere between AD 300 and 1200 when people from the islands west of here landed with the tools, animals and provisions to stay for good. Although only 171 km² in area, at the time Easter Island had extensive forests, and the volcanic craters held drinking water – which is an important feature on an island with no rivers.

Rano Kau volcano (Picture)

Somewhere between AD 1000 and 1500, the Rapanui began a period of frantic construction of enormous stone statues – the Moai, for which Easter Island is world famous today. These enigmatic figures represented the islander’s deified ancestors, and were mostly placed near the coast, with their backs to the sea.

Moai of Ahu Nau Nau, Anakena Beach (Picture)

Moai are hewn from the island’s volcanic rock², and the largest Moai erected was almost 10 metres high and weighed 75 tonnes; their production and transportation is considered a remarkable accomplishment.

Moai of Ahu Tongariki (Picture)

887 Moai have been identified to date, however only a quarter ever made it to one of the coastal Ahu platforms – nearly half of all Moai remain at a single site called Rano Raraku, the volcanic crater where 95% were originally carved. The landscape is littered with 397 Moai – some half-finished, some semi-submerged in the earth through erosion, and others never even detached from the rock.³

Rano Raraku crater, Rano Raraku Moai (Picture)

By the time explorers arrived here in the 18th Century, the forests of the island had completely disappeared. It’s unknown whether or not the Rapanui had used all the trees in the construction of the Moai, or if some other ecological factor was involved, but either way the islanders were now trapped – there was no longer any wood available for making seaworthy canoes.

After this things began to go rapidly downhill for the inhabitants of Easter Island. There followed a period of tribal wars, raids by Peruvian slavers, epidemics of European diseases, and the conversion of the entire island into a sheep farm. During this period much Rapa Nui culture was lost forever, nearly all of the Moai were deliberately toppled (probably by warring tribal factions), and by the late 19th century only 111 of the indigenous people remained alive.

Somehow, against all the odds, today there are several thousand descendants of the surviving 111 Rapanui living on Easter Island – which now has sustainable forestry and the longest runway in Polynesia (having been extended to function as an emergency landing place for the U.S. Space Shuttle). The Moai have returned too – many have been re-erected on their Ahus around the island and one has even been given new eyes.

Moai at Ahu Akivi, unusual in not being on the coast, and facing towards the sea (Picture)

Read more about Easter Island and Moai at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Josh, Adam, Reinhold and Didier.

(It’s Island Week 2 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.)

The Pitcairns are a group of four islands: Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno, which are all located near New Zealand in the Pacific Ocean.

The islands are classed as a British overseas territory and have an official population of just 48, making them the least populated jurisdiction in the world.

All 48 of the islands’ inhabitants, who are just 9 different families, live in Adamstown on the main island of Pitcairn. Adamstown is therefore unchallenged as the capital city, and with that title earns the record for World’s smallest capital city.

The population is unlikely to rise anytime soon; the islanders mostly descend from British mutineers of the HMAV Bounty and only two children have been born in the last 21 years.

Wikipedia Links: Pitcairn Islands and Adamstown.

Thanks: koen & tizerst