Melanesia

The Mariana Islands are part of a great submerged mountain range that extends all the way from Guam north to Japan. While the southern Marianas are known worldwide as tourist destinations, the uninhabited northernmost islands are actually a long string of active volcanoes fed by the subduction of the Pacific Plate into the Mariana Trench, the deepest location on Earth.

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…

In French New Caledonia there's a natural heart shaped swamp which featured on the cover of 'Earth from Above', a collection of photographs by Yann Arthus Bertrand. The photo was titled 'HEART IN VOH'. In Taipei there's a heart shaped…