St. Pierre Island is a raised reef island west of

Providence Atoll The Providence Atoll is part of the Farquhar Group of islands in the Seychelles that are part of the Outer Islands, with a distance of southwest of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island. History The atoll was discovered in 1501 by Joao da No ...

and part of

Farquhar Group The Farquhar Group belong to the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, lying in the southwest of the island nation, more than southwest of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island. Area The total land area of all islands in the group is less than , ...

, which belongs to the Outer Islands of the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

. It has a distance of southwest of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island.

History

St. Pierre Island bears the name of one of Captain Dechemin's ships, who visited the island on 6 June 1732. In former times, much of the island was covered with a '' Pisonia grandis'' forest, in which large numbers of

seabird Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...

s nested. The coral rock was thus covered with

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

. The guano, and since the 1950s also the rock and sand into which the

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...

had been leached, were mined away between 1906 and 1972 converting an island once densely forested to the current barren, pitted landscape. During that time, a small workers' settlement existed in the NW of St Pierre, which depended on supplies shipped in from abroad.

Geography

The island is located 34 km west of Cerf Island of

, and 462 km east of

Aldabra Aldabra is the world's second-largest coral atoll, lying south-east of the continent of Africa. It is part of the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that are part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, with a distance of 1,120 k ...

. This uninhabited island is nearly circular, east-west by north-south, with a land area of . St. Pierre has a gently sloping seabed on the exposed southeastern coast and a steep drop off on the northwest, where the

fringing reef A fringing reef is one of the three main types of coral reef. It is distinguished from the other main types, barrier reefs and atolls, in that it has either an entirely shallow backreef zone (lagoon) or none at all. If a fringing reef grows direc ...

is all but absent.

Geology

The seaward faces of St. Pierre Island are abrupt and undercut fossil coral cliffs, high and broken at one point only by a inlet to a cove with sandy bottom. Thus St Pierre Island is virtually inaccessible from the sea. In the center is a depression more or less of

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. The ceaseless sea swell has undercut these faces; jets of water are thrown up in many places by each wave as it strikes

blowhole Blowhole may refer to: * Blowhole (anatomy), the hole at the top of a whale's or other cetacean's head *Blowhole (geology), a hole at the inland end of a sea cave **Kiama Blowhole in Kiama, Australia **The Blow Hole, a marine passage between Minst ...

s worn out of the coral, depositing

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...

s of sand and coral debris up to inland. At the southeast shore of the island, the wearing-away has caused the formation of flat shelves, and the entire island is honeycombed by caverns washed out by the sea. Due to this, no source of

fresh water Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

exists on St Pierre.

Demographics

Today St. Pierre Island is uninhabited, but in modern times it was inhabited for some periods. There is a derelict jetty at the ruined settlement on the north west shore, which is accessible by boat in the calmest weather only.

Administration

The island belongs to Outer Islands District.

Flora and fauna

Today the island is barren except for a clump of ''

Casuarina equisetifolia ''Casuarina equisetifolia'', common names ''Coastal She-oak'' or ''Horsetail She-oak'' (sometimes referred to as the Australian pine tree or whistling pine tree outside Australia), is a she-oak species of the genus ''Casuarina''. The native ...

'' trees up 12 m (40 ft) high on its northwestern part, covering a third of the land area. The trees were originally planted as

windbreak A windbreak (shelterbelt) is a planting usually made up of one or more rows of trees or shrubs planted in such a manner as to provide shelter from the wind and to protect soil from erosion. They are commonly planted in hedgerows around the edges ...

for the mining camp, and have unexpectedly thrived and spread. Most of the

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

once found on St Pierre are now gone, including the ''Pisonia'',

Suicide Tree Suicide tree may refer to at least two different plant species: *''Cerbera odollam'' (native to India) so called because it is toxic *''Tachigali versicolor ''Tachigali versicolor'' or the suicide tree is a species of tree found from Costa Rica ...

(''Cerbera odollam'') and rosemallow (''

Hibiscus tiliaceus ''Hibiscus tiliaceus'', commonly known as the sea hibiscus or coast cottonwood, is a species of flowering tree in the mallow family, Malvaceae, with a pantropical distribution along coastlines. It has also been introduced to Florida and New Zea ...

''). Some ''

Pemphis acidula ''Pemphis acidula'', commonly known as bantigue (pron. ) or mentigi, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lythraceae. It is a mangrove found throughout most of the tropical Indo-Pacific growing on rocky shores. The genus ''Pemphis'', to ...

'' might persist. By about 1960, it was noted that the most common

herbaceous plant Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

was ''

Stachytarpheta indica ''Stachytarpheta indica'' is a species of plant in the family Verbenaceae The Verbenaceae ( ), the verbena family or vervain family, is a family of mainly tropical flowering plants. It contains trees, shrubs, and herbs notable for heads, spik ...

'', while the introduced Indian Blanketflower (''Gaillardia pulchella'') had established itself widely. Sisal (''Agave sisalana''), Chinese tiolet (''Asystasia gangetica''),

Papaya The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus ''Carica'' of the family Caricaceae. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within modern-day southern Mexico and ...

(''Carica papaya''), Jimsonweed (''Datura stramonium'') and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

s (''Musa'') were found around the mining camp. Whether any of these has survived is not known, though the

dropseed ''Sporobolus'' is a nearly cosmopolitan genus of plants in the grass family. The name ''Sporobolus'' means "seed-thrower", and is derived from Ancient Greek word (), meaning "seed", and the root of () "to throw", referring to the dispersion of ...

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

'' Sporobolus virginicus'' which was found in abundance on the dunes probably has. The oonopid

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

spider species ''

Farqua quadrimaculata ''Farqua'' is a genus of spiders belonging to the family Oonopidae. It was first described in 2001 by Saaristo. , the genus includes only one species, ''Farqua quadrimaculata'', which is found on the Farquhar Group The Farquhar Group belong ...

'' is the only known spider that is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the Farquhar Islands. (2001). Dwarf hunting spiders or Oonopidae (Arachnida, Araneae) of the Seychelles. ''Insect Syst. Evol.'' 32: 307-358

Image gallery

File:Seychelles large map.jpg, Map 1 File:Outer Islands in Seychelles.svg, District Map File:StPierre ISS002-E-7101.PNG, NASA picture of St. Pierre Island

References

External links

*
Island guide 1

Island guide 2

National Bureau of Statistics

Info on the island

2010 Sailing directions
{{DEFAULTSORT:St. Pierre Island, Seychelles Uninhabited islands of Seychelles Islands of Outer Islands (Seychelles) Phosphate mining Environmental disasters in Africa