Tonga Islands
Located in Oceania, Tonga is a small archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, directly south of Samoa and about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand. It has 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited, which are in three main groups – VavaÊ»u, HaÊ»apai, and Tongatapu – and cover an -long north–south line. The total size is just . Due to the spread out islands it has the 40th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of . The largest island, Tongatapu, on which the capital city of Nukualofa is located, covers . Geologically the Tongan islands are of two types: most have a limestone base formed from uplifted coral formations; others consist of limestone overlaying a volcanic base. Climate The climate is tropical with a distinct warm period (December–April), during which the temperatures rise above , and a cooler period (May–November), with temperatures rarely rising above . The temperature increases from , and the annual rainfall is from as one moves from Tongatapu in the sou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Oceania in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of its total surface area, larger than Earth's entire land area combined .Pacific Ocean . '' Britannica Concise.'' 2008: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The centers of both the [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fonualei
Fonualei is an uninhabited volcanic island in the kingdom of Tonga. It 70 km northwest of VavaÊ»u and is part of the highly active Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone and its associated volcanic arc, which extends from New Zealand north-northeast to Fiji, and is formed by the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Indo-Australian Plate. The closest island to Fonualei is TokÅ« 19.7 km to the southeast. Geography The island is the peak of an active volcano which rises 1000m from the seafloor. It has a diameter of 2 km and a maximum height of 188m. The coast is surrounded by cliffs, with only two beaches suitable for a landing. The western, southern, and north-eastern sides have narrow fringing reefs. History In the 1830s the inhabitants of TokÅ« used Fonualei for their gardens. The first European to sight the island was Don Francisco Mourelle de la Rua on the ''La Princesa'' on 26 February 1781. He reported the island to be barren from eruptions, and called it for t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Andesite
Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predominantly of sodium-rich plagioclase plus pyroxene or hornblende. Andesite is the extrusive equivalent of plutonic diorite. Characteristic of subduction zones, andesite represents the dominant rock type in island arcs. The average composition of the continental crust is andesitic. Along with basalts, andesites are a component of the Martian crust. The name ''andesite'' is derived from the Andes mountain range, where this rock type is found in abundance. It was first applied by Christian Leopold von Buch in 1826. Description Andesite is an aphanitic (fine-grained) igneous rock that is intermediate in its content of silica and low in alkali metals. It has less than 20% quartz and 10% feldspathoid by volume, with at least 65% of the fe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ʻUiha
ʻUiha is an island in Lifuka district, in the Haʻapai islands of Tonga. It had a population of 638 in 2006 and an area of . Tonga See also *List of islands and towns in Tonga
The following list gives all islands and cities (villages and hamlets) in Tonga in alphabetical order with many local areas and nicknames as well. Coordinates are given for the centre of each place. All place names are given in the Tongan language ...
References Islands of Tonga[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Uoleva
Uoleva is a sand-cay island in Lifuka district, in the Ha'apai islands of Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, PuleÊ»anga FakatuÊ»i Ê»o Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in .... Almost uninhabited, it is known for its five small resorts and clean, quiet beaches. Resort island Uoleva is known for its five small resorts: Tiana's, Captain Cook's, Sea Change Eco Retreat, Fanifo Lofa, and Serenity Beach. They are each capable of hosting perhaps two dozen guests each, but attendance is usually lower. Each is located on the west, leeward side of the island. Besides the resort owners and their guests, the island is uninhabited. Infrastructure There are no roads on Uoleva. There are no cell phone towers but it is within range of the towers on Lifuka or ‘Uiha. Electricity is only generated by small-scale solar panels. Water is ava ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lifuka
Lifuka is an island in the Kingdom of Tonga. It is located within the Ha'apai Group, Haapai Group in the centre of the country, to northeast of the national capital of NukuÊ»alofa, Nukualofa. It is the administrative centre of the Haapai group of islands with Pangai being the administrative capital village. History Lifuka is the place where Captain James Cook dubbed Tonga "The Friendly Islands". Tofua is where the mutiny on the Bounty, mutiny on the ''Bounty'' occurred in 1789; this active volcanic island lies approximately 40 nautical miles west of Lifuka. The Captain William Bligh, Bligh voyage stands as the longest known successful passage ever recorded in an open boat without modern navigational aids. It was successfully recreated in 2009 by the Talisker Bounty team. Lifuka Island was the final anchorage of the ill-fated ''Port au Prince (1790 ship), Port au Prince''. In 1806 the natives off the northwest coast attacked the British privateer and whaler, slaughtering the maj ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "dawn") and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope Carbon-13, 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope Carbon-12, 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the ''Grande Coupure'' (the "Great Break" in continuity) or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Popigai impact structure, Siberia and in what is now ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pacific Plate
The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Izanagi Plates. The Pacific Plate subsequently grew to where it underlies most of the Pacific Ocean basin. This reduced the Farallon Plate to a few remnants along the west coast of North America and the Phoenix Plate to a small remnant near the Drake Passage, and destroyed the Izanagi Plate by subduction under Asia. The Pacific Plate contains an interior hot spot forming the Hawaiian Islands. Boundaries The north-eastern side is a divergent boundary with the Explorer Plate, the Juan de Fuca Plate and the Gorda Plate forming respectively the Explorer Ridge, the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Gorda Ridge. In the middle of the eastern side is a transform boundary with the North American Plate along the San Andreas Fault, and a boundary with the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Subduction
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the heavier plate dives beneath the second plate and sinks into the mantle. A region where this process occurs is known as a subduction zone, and its surface expression is known as an arc-trench complex. The process of subduction has created most of the Earth's continental crust. Rates of subduction are typically measured in centimeters per year, with the average rate of convergence being approximately two to eight centimeters per year along most plate boundaries. Subduction is possible because the cold oceanic lithosphere is slightly denser than the underlying asthenosphere, the hot, ductile layer in the upper mantle underlying the cold, rigid lithosphere. Once initiated, stable subduction is driven mostly by the negative buoyancy of the de ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |