Flint Island
   HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Flint Island
OR:
Flint Island on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

Flint Island is an uninhabited
coral island A coral island is a type of island formed from coral detritus and associated organic material. It occurs in tropical and sub-tropical areas, typically as part of a coral reef which has grown to cover a far larger area under the sea. Ecosystem ...
in the central
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 contin ...
, part of the Southern Line Islands under the jurisdiction of
Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...
. In 2014 the Kiribati government established a exclusion zone around each of the southern Line Islands (Caroline (commonly called Millennium), Flint, Vostok, Malden, and Starbuck).


Geography

Flint Island is located about northwest of
Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austra ...
, south-southeast of
Vostok Island Vostok Island is an uninhabited coral island in the central Pacific Ocean, part of the Line Islands belonging to Kiribati. Other names for the island include Anne Island, Bostock Island, Leavitts Island, Reaper Island, Wostock Island or Wostok I ...
, and southwest of
Caroline Island Caroline Island (also known as Caroline Atoll or Millennium Island) is the easternmost of several uninhabited coral atolls comprising the southern Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean nation of Kiribati. The atoll was first sighted by Eu ...
. The island is about long and wide at its widest point (). It has a land area of and rises to a height of above sea level. The island is surrounded by a narrow fringing reef and with no safe anchorage, landing is difficult. According to the U.S. Exploring Expedition (February 5, 1841), the island was thickly wooded with
primeval forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...
, however the island is now mostly covered with planted coconut palms.


History

Flint island was discovered by the Spanish expedition of
Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the Eas ...
on 4 February 1521, and charted as ''Tiburones'' (Sharks in Spanish) because of the many sharks that sailors fished in it. Together with
Puka-Puka Puka-Puka is a small coral atoll in the north-eastern Tuamotu Archipelago, sometimes included as a member of the Disappointment Islands. This atoll is quite isolated, the nearest land being Fakahina, 182 km to the southwest. Puka-Puka Ato ...
(named ''San Pablo'') they were named ''Islas Infortunadas'' (Unfortunate Islands in Spanish). A now-discredited theory held that the island was named after Captain Keen, who visited in 1835, but an entry in Krusenstern's ''Hydrographie der grössern Ozeane,'' published in 1819, makes it clear the island already had this name. Flint Island was claimed under the 1856
U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
Guano Act The Guano Islands Act (, enacted August 18, 1856, codified at §§ 1411-1419) is a United States federal law passed by the U.S. Congress that enables citizens of the United States to take possession, in the name of the United States, of unclaim ...
, but it was apparently never occupied. It was leased by the
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
to Houlder Brothers and Co. of
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
who carried out guano digging in the central part of the island from 1875 to 1880 under field manager
John T. Arundel John T. Arundel (1 September 1841 – 30 November 1919) was an English entrepreneur who was instrumental in the development of the mining of phosphate rock on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Banaba (Ocean Island). Williams & Macdonald (1985) ...
. From 1881 John T. Arundel & Co. carried on the mining business. The excavated areas have since filled with brackish water, forming two or three small lagoons. Coconut palms were planted on the island by Arundel in 1881 and
copra Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from co ...
was produced until 1891. The island was leased in 1911 to S.R. Maxwell and Co., Ltd. who employed 30 men and one manager to harvest copra from the approximately 30,000 coconut palms. On January 3, 1908 a total eclipse of the sun was observed on the island by an expedition from the Lick Observatory in California. The observation point on the island was determined to be at latitude.The Lick Observatory-Crocker Expedition to Flint Island
/ref>


Photo gallery

File:Flint Island AKK Beach.jpg, Beach on Flint Island File:Flint Island AKK Fringing Reef.jpg, Fringing Reef on Flint Island File:Flint Island AKK Lake.jpg, One of the shallow lakes in Flint Island's interior File:Flint Island AKK Profile.jpg, Heavy vegetation on Flint Island File:Flint Island AKK Pisonia.jpg, Stand of Pisonia on Flint Island


See also

*
List of Guano Island claims The United States claimed a number of islands as insular areas under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. Only the eight administered as the US Minor Islands and the ones part of Hawaii and American Samoa remain under the jurisdiction of the United Stat ...
*
List of islands This is a list of the lists of islands in the world grouped by country, by continent, by body of water A body of water or waterbody (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another plan ...
*
Desert island A desert island, deserted island, or uninhabited island, is an island, islet or atoll that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often depicted in films or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereot ...


References


External links


National Geographic - Southern Line Islands Expedition, 2014
* Krusenstern, A. J. von: Beyträge zur Hydrographie der grössern Ozeane als Erläuterungen zu einer Charte des ganzen Erdkreises nach Mercators Projection; Leipzig : Kummer, 1819 (from the digital collections of the Göttingen Library) (p. 20

{{Authority control Uninhabited islands of Kiribati Pacific islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act Former populated places in Kiribati Former populated places in Oceania Line Islands Coral islands Former disputed islands Line Islands (Kiribati)