Solomon Islands Archipelago
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Solomon Islands Archipelago
The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The many islands of the archipelago are distributed across Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands (country). The largest island in the archipelago is the Bougainville Island, which is a part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (currently a part of Papua New Guinea) along with Buka Island, the Nukumanu Islands, and a number of smaller nearby islands. Much of the remainder falls within the territory of Solomon Islands and include the atolls of Ontong Java, Sikaiana, the raised coral atolls of Bellona and Rennell, and the high islands of Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Makira, Malaita, New Georgia, the Nggelas, Santa Isabel, and the Shortlands. Geography The Solomon Islands (archipelago) consists of over 1,000 islands, ranging from low-lying coral ...
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Archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archipelago, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Lakshadweep Islands, the Galápagos Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Philippine Archipelago, the Maldives, the Balearic Islands, The Bahamas, the Aegean Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, the Canary Islands, Malta, the Azores, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the British Isles, the islands of the Archipelago Sea, and Shetland. They are sometimes defined by political boundaries. For example, the Gulf archipelago off the northeastern Pacific coast forms part of a larger archipelago that geographically includes Washington state's San Juan Islands; while the Gulf archipelago and San Juan Islands are geographically related, they are not technically included in the same archipelago due to manmad ...
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Bellona Island
Bellona Island is an island of the Rennell and Bellona Province, in the Solomon Islands. Its length is about and its average width . Its area is about . It is almost totally surrounded by high cliffs, consisting primarily of raised coral limestone. Population Bellona Island is densely populated and its interior is lush and fertile. There are three districts namely Matangi, Ghongau and Ngango. Each district has manaha (tribes) except for Ghongau district, which has two sub-districts; Nguutuanga Bangitakungu and Ngutuanga Bangika'ango. There are many villages on Bellona Island: *Matahenua/Matamoana (west) *Honga'ubea *Tongomainge *Ngotokanaba *Pauta *Ngongona *Gongau *Ahenoa *Matangi *NukuTonga (East) Bellona Island is, like Rennell Island, a Polynesian-inhabited island within the Solomons, where most of the islands are primarily Melanesian with a few Micronesian island provinces. It is thus counted among the Polynesian outliers. The nearby Bellona Shoals were the site of sever ...
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Indo-Australian Plate
The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian and the Australian Plates approximately 43 million years ago. The fusion happened when the mid-ocean ridge in the Indian Ocean, which separated the two plates, ceased spreading. Regions India, Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania, New Zealand, and New Caledonia are all fragments of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana. As the ocean floor broke apart, these land masses fragmented from one another, and for a time these centers were thought to be dormant and fused into a single plate. However, research in the early 21st century indicates plate separation of the Indo-Australian Plate may have already occurred. Characteristics The eastern side of the plate is the convergent boundary with the Pacific plate. The Pacific plate sinks below the Aust ...
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Mount Balbi
Mount Balbi is a Holocene stratovolcano located in the northern portion of the island of Bougainville Island, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. A gentle prominence at is the highest point of the island. There are five volcanic craters east of the summit, one of which contains a Volcanic crater lake, crater lake. The summit is composed of coalesced cones and lava domes which host a largsolfaterafield. There are numerous fumaroles near the craters, though Balbi has not erupted in historic time. See also * List of volcanoes in Papua New Guinea * List of Ultras of Oceania References * Bagana Volcano and Balbi Volcano, Bougainville Island
Mountains of Papua New Guinea Volcanoes of Bougainville Island Stratovolcanoes of Papua New Guinea Volcanic crater lakes Holocene stratovolcanoes Inactive volcanoes {{Bougainville-geo-stub ...
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Volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging, and most are found underwater. For example, a mid-ocean ridge, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates whereas the Pacific Ring of Fire has volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust's plates, such as in the East African Rift and the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field and Rio Grande rift in North America. Volcanism away from plate boundaries has been postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs from the core–mantle boundary, deep in the Earth. This results in hotspot volcanism, of which the Hawaiian hotspot is an example. Volcanoes are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide ...
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Coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of very many genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening. Each polyp excretes an exoskeleton near the base. Over many generations, the colony thus creates a skeleton characteristic of the species which can measure up to several meters in size. Individual colonies grow by asexual reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning: polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously overnight, often around a full moon. Fertilized eggs form planulae, a mobile early form of the coral polyp which, when m ...
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Shortland Islands
The Shortland Islands is an archipelago of Western Province, Solomon Islands, at . The island group lies in the extreme north-west of the country's territory, close to the south-east edge of Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. The largest island in the archipelago is Shortland Island (originally called Alu). With smaller offshore islands such as Gharomai (to the southwest), Balalae (to the northeast) and Magusaiai, Faisi, Pirumeri and Poporang (all to the southeast), it forms the Inner Shortlands Ward of the Western Province. The remaining islands comprise the Outer Shortlands Ward and consist of two groups; the Treasury Islands to the southwest of Shortland Island consists mainly of Mono Island and the smaller Stirling Island; the other group, which lies to the northeast of Shortland Island, consists of Fauro Island and smaller islands grouped around it - including Masamasa and Piru Islands to the east, Rohae Island to the south, Mania Island to the southwest, Asie Island to ...
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Santa Isabel Island
Santa Isabel Island (also known as Isabel, Ysabel and Mahaga) is the longest in Solomon Islands, the third largest in terms of surface area, and the largest in the group of islands in Isabel Province. Location and geographic data Choiseul lies to the north-west, Malaita to the south-east. The Pacific Ocean lies to the north, and Guadalcanal (Isatabu) to the south. The highest point in Santa Isabel is Mount Sasari, . The Marutho river runs down Mount Sasari to the ocean at Hofi. Almost all the rivers or streams run from that centre point except for those at the other tip of the island on the Katova side. The administrative centre is Buala. The nearest airport is Fera Airport on neighbouring Fera Island. History The first European landing in the Solomon Islands archipelago was made at Santa Isabel Island, by the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña on 7 February 1568. It was charted as ''Santa Isabel de la Estrella'' (St. Elizabeth of the Star of Bethlehem in Spanish). A set ...
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Nggela Islands
The Nggela Islands, also known as the Florida Islands, are a small island group in the Central Province of Solomon Islands, a sovereign state (since 1978) in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The chain is composed of four larger islands and about 50 smaller islands. The two main islands, Nggela Sule and Nggela Pile to its southeast, are separated by a channel, Mboli Passage. The name Florida Island is sometimes also used to refer to Nggela Sule. The other two large islands lie northwest of Nggela Sule; Sandfly (also known as Mobokonimbeti or Olevugha) and, further northwest, Buenavista (also known as Vatilau). Many of the smaller islands have white coral beaches. North of Nggela Sule is Anuha (), and just off the southwest coast of Nggela Sule is Tulagi. the capital of Central Province. Other islands include Gavutu and Tanambogo. History The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña on 16 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was ...
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New Georgia Islands
The New Georgia Islands are part of the Western Province of Solomon Islands. They are located to the northwest of Guadalcanal. The larger islands are mountainous and covered in rain forest. The main islands are New Georgia, Vella Lavella, Kolombangara (a dormant volcano), Ghizo, Vangunu, Rendova and Tetepare. They are surrounded by coral reefs and include the largest saltwater lagoon in the world: Marovo lagoon. Another famous location is Kennedy Island where the future United States president, John F. Kennedy, spent three days stranded during World War II. Several of the islands were scenes of fighting in the war. The main towns are Gizo, Munda and Noro. The main industries are forestry and fishing. One of the smaller New Georgia islands, Ranongga, was lifted three metres (10 ft.) out of the Pacific Ocean by the 2007 Solomon Islands earthquake, causing an expansion of its shoreline by up to 70 metres all around. Northwest Solomonic languages are spoken on the isla ...
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Malaita
Malaita is the primary island of Malaita Province in Solomon Islands. Malaita is the most populous island of the Solomon Islands, with a population of 161,832 as of 2021, or more than a third of the entire national population. It is also the second largest island in the country by area, after Guadalcanal. A tropical and mountainous island, Malaita's river systems and tropical forests are being exploited for ecosystem stability by keeping them pristine. The largest city and provincial capital is Auki, on the northwest coast and is on the northern shore of the Langa Langa Lagoon. The people of the Langa Langa Lagoon and the Lau Lagoon on the northeast coast of Malaita call themselves ''wane i asi'' ‘salt-water people’ as distinct from ''wane i tolo'' ‘bush people’ who live in the interior of the island. South Malaita Island, also known as ''Small Malaita'' and ''Maramasike'' for 'Are'are language, Areare speakers and Malamweimwei known to more than 80% of the islanders, ...
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Makira
The island of Makira (also known as San Cristobal and San Cristóbal) is the largest island of Makira-Ulawa Province in the Solomon Islands. It is third most populous island after Malaita and Guadalcanal, with a population of 55,126 as of 2020. The island is located east of Guadalcanal and south of Malaita. The largest and capital city is Kirakira. History The first recorded sighting by Europeans of Makira was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña in June 1568. More precisely the sighting and also landing in San Cristobal was due to a local voyage that set out from Guadalcanal in a small boat, in the accounts the brigantine ''Santiago'', commanded by Alférez Hernando Enriquez and having Hernán Gallego as pilot. They charted it as ''San Cristóbal''.Brand, Donald D. ''The Pacific Basin: A History of its Geographical Explorations'' The American Geographical Society, New York, 1967, p.133. Education The Stuyvenberg Rural Training Centre is a rural boarding c ...
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