Map of the Santa Cruz Islands (Solomon Islands)

Fatutaka, Fatu Taka or Patu Taka (also known as Fataka and Mitre Island) is a small

high island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

province of Temotu in the south-west

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 continen ...

. The easternmost of the Solomon Islands, Fatutaka is located southeast of

Anuta Anuta is a small high island in the southeastern part of the Solomon Islands province of Temotu, one of the smallest permanently inhabited Polynesian islands. It is one of the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia. Geography The island ...

and can be seen from there in clear weather. Fatutaka and Anuta were discovered by Admiral Edward Edwards in 1791. The island, located at , is a small rocky outcropping, rising to an elevation of . The total land area of the island is .

Human activities

The island's soil is rocky, and not especially fertile, although it has in the past been used as a

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

ing location for the people of Anuta. The population of Anuta, the closest inhabited island, regularly sail to Fatutaka to eat and collect sea-birds and their eggs. The birds of Fatukaka have never been surveyed although the presence of

Frigatebird Frigatebirds are a family of seabirds called Fregatidae which are found across all tropical and subtropical oceans. The five extant species are classified in a single genus, ''Fregata''. All have predominantly black plumage, long, deeply forked ...

Eastern Reef Egret The Pacific reef heron (''Egretta sacra''), also known as the eastern reef heron or eastern reef egret, is a species of heron found throughout southern Asia and Oceania. It occurs in two colour morphs with either slaty grey or pure white plumag ...

Pacific Imperial Pigeon The Pacific imperial pigeon (''Ducula pacifica'') is a widespread species of pigeon in the family Columbidae. It is found in American Samoa, the Cook Islands, the smaller islands of eastern Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, the smaller satellite islands of ...

, and

Emerald Dove The common emerald dove (''Chalcophaps indica''), also called Asian emerald dove and grey-capped emerald dove, is a widespread resident breeding pigeon native to the tropical and subtropical parts of the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. ...

have been reported.

Geology

Fatutaka is one of numerous volcanic highs, islands and banks, in the north-western North Fiji Basin south of the fossil Vitiaz Trench (10°30'–19°S, 169°–174°E). These highs are, however, located up to from the Vitiaz Trench and do not form a continuous chain derived from the trench, but are a series of massifs aligned on north–south trending faults. Anuta and Fatutaka consist of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

ic lavas and andesitic

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of di ...

s. In the 1970s the formation of Anuta and Fatutaka 2.2 was attributed to volcanism in the Vitiaz island arc during the initial

back-arc A back-arc basin is a type of geologic basin, found at some convergent plate boundaries. Presently all back-arc basins are submarine features associated with island arcs and subduction zones, with many found in the western Pacific Ocean. Most of ...

opening of the

North Fiji Basin The North Fiji Basin (NFB) is an oceanic basin west of Fiji in the south-west Pacific Ocean. It is an actively spreading back-arc basin delimited by the Fiji islands to the east, the inactive Vitiaz Trench to the north, the Vanuatu/New Hebrides ...

. The Vitiaz Arc volcanoes were, however, displaced in an earlier episode and the formation of the islands is now attributed to renewed volcanism associated with a change in motion of the

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 Iza ...

2 Ma.

References

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * * Islands of the Solomon Islands Volcanoes of the Solomon Islands {{Solomons-geo-stub

Human activities

Geology

See also

References

Notes

Sources