Ball's Pyramid is an erosional remnant of a shield volcano and

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

lying southeast of

Lord Howe Island Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland P ...

in the

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 ...

. It is high, while measuring in length and only across, making it the tallest volcanic stack in the world. Ball's Pyramid is part of the

Lord Howe Island Marine Park Lord Howe Island Marine Park is the site of Australia's and the world's most southern coral reef ecosystem. The island is 10 km in length, 2 km wide and consists of a large lagoonal reef system along its leeward side, with 28 small isl ...

in Australia and is over northeast of Sydney,

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. Steep, eroded, and formed 6.4 million years ago, Ball's Pyramid is positioned in the centre of a submarine shelf and is surrounded by rough seas, making any approach difficult.

History

Discovery

The pyramid is named after

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

Henry Lidgbird Ball Henry Lidgbird Ball (7 December 1756 – 22 October 1818) was a Rear-Admiral in the Royal Navy of the British Empire. While Ball was best known as the commander of the First Fleet's , he was also notable for the exploration and the establishmen ...

, who reported discovering it in 1788. On the same voyage, Ball also reported discovering Lord Howe Island. In ''The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay with an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island'' (1789), Arthur Phillip gives this description of the area around Ball's Pyramid.. before describing Lord Howe Island:

There lies about four miles from the south-west part of the pyramid, a dangerous rock, which shows itself a little above the surface of the water, and appears not to be larger than a boat. Lieutenant Ball had no opportunity of examining whether there is a safe passage between them or not.

Survey and exploration

Balls Pyramid, South Pacific Denham 1853 Nla

In May 1853,

Henry Mangles Denham Vice Admiral Sir Henry Mangles Denham (28 August 1800 – 3 July 1887) was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station. Early career Denham entered the navy in 1809. He served on from 1810 to 1814, initially u ...

with and surveyed the area around

including Ball's Pyramid, producing the first chart of the pyramid. The first recorded person to go ashore is believed to have been Henry Wilkinson, a

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...

at the New South Wales Department of Mines, in 1882. In 1964, a team from Sydney attempted to climb to the summit of the pyramid. However, the climbers were forced to turn back on the fifth day as they ran short of food and water. The expedition was the idea of Australian adventurer Dick Smith, who was a member of Rover Scouts at the time. The expedition also involved other members of the Scouting movement and other people. Smith went on the expedition, but did not attempt the climb due to an unexpected medical operation two weeks before the expedition. Ball's Pyramid was first climbed on 14 February 1965 by Bryden Allen, John Davis,

Jack Pettigrew John Douglas "Jack" Pettigrew (2 October 1943''Who's Who in Australia 2013'', Crown Content, 2012. - 7 May 2019) was an Australian neuroscientist. He was Emeritus Professor of Physiology and Director of the Vision, Touch and Hearing Research ...

and David Witham of the Sydney Rock Climbing Club. Jack Hill of New Zealand then climbed to the summit with Pettigrew on the following day. Don Willcox and Ben Sandilands were part of the support team. In 1979, Smith returned to the pyramid, together with climbers John Worrall and Hugh Ward. They successfully reached the summit and unfurled a

flag of New South Wales The current state flag of New South Wales was officially adopted by the government of New South Wales in 1876. The flag is based on the defaced British Blue Ensign with the state badge located in the fly. The badge, based on the coat of arm ...

provided to them by Premier

Neville Wran Neville Kenneth Wran, (11 October 1926 – 20 April 2014) was an Australian politician who was the Premier of New South Wales from 1976 to 1986. He was the national president of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1980 to 1986 and chairman ...

. Climbing was banned in 1982 under amendments to the Lord Howe Island Act, and in 1986, all access to the island was banned by the Lord Howe Island Board. In 1990, the policy was relaxed to allow some climbing under strict conditions, which in recent years has required an application to the relevant state minister.

Geography

Like Lord Howe Island and the

Lord Howe Seamount Chain The Lord Howe Seamount Chain formed during the Miocene. It features many coral-capped guyots and is one of the two parallel seamount chains alongside the east coast of Australia; the Lord Howe and Tasmantid seamount chains both run north-south ...

, Ball's Pyramid is based on the Lord Howe Rise, part of the submerged

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas t ...

Zealandia Zealandia (pronounced ), also known as (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago.Gurnis, M., Hall, C.E., and Lavier, L.L., ...

. Ball's Pyramid has a few satellite islets. Observatory Rock and Wheatsheaf Islet lie about west-northwest and west-southwest respectively, of the western extremity of Ball's Pyramid. Southeast Rock is a pinnacle located about southeast of Ball's Pyramid. The shelf is in length and averages in width and lies under an average depth of of water. It is separated by a

submarine canyon A submarine canyon is a steep-sided valley cut into the seabed of the continental slope, sometimes extending well onto the continental shelf, having nearly vertical walls, and occasionally having canyon wall heights of up to 5 km, from c ...

from another shelf on which Lord Howe Island is located. The cliffs of the stack continue under the water surface to the level of the shelf.

Flora and fauna

''Melaleuca howeana''

A '' Melaleuca howeana'' shrub was found growing on Ball's Pyramid. The bush was growing in a small crevice where water was seeping through cracks in the underlying rocks. This moisture supported relatively lush plant growth which had, over time, resulted in a buildup of plant debris several metres deep.

''Dryococelus australis''

Ball's Pyramid supports the last known wild population of Lord Howe Island stick insect (''

Dryococelus australis ''Dryococelus australis'', commonly known as the Lord Howe Island stick insect or tree lobster, is a species of stick insect that lives on the Lord Howe Island Group. It is the only member of the monotypic genus ''Dryococelus''. Thought to be ...

''). Following the last sighting of the Lord Howe Island stick insect on Lord Howe Island in 1920, the species was presumed extinct. Evidence of continued survival on Ball's Pyramid was discovered during the 1964 climb when a dead specimen was found and photographed. Throughout the following years, several more dead specimens were discovered, but attempts to find live specimens were unsuccessful. In 2001, a team of

entomologists Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

and conservationists landed on Ball's Pyramid to chart its flora and fauna. As they had hoped, they discovered a population of the Lord Howe Island stick insect living in an area of , at a height of above the shoreline, under a single ''M. howeana'' shrub. The population was extremely small, with only 24 individuals. Two pairs were brought to mainland Australia, and new populations have been successfully bred with the ultimate goal of reintroduction to Lord Howe Island. In 2014 an unauthorised climbing team sighted live stick insects in an exposed position below the summit of Ball's Pyramid in a thicket of

sedge The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus '' Carex'' ...

plants, suggesting that the insect's range on Ball's Pyramid is more widespread than previously held and its food preferences are not limited to ''Melaleuca howeana''.Smith, Dick (2015). ''Balls Pyramid, Climbing the world's tallest sea stack''. Dick Smith Adventure Pty Ltd.

References

External links

* * * * * {{cite web , url= http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/Bryden.html , title= Mountaineering exploits: Ball's Pyramid , first= Bryden , last= Allen , publisher= University of Queensland Hotspot volcanoes Miocene shield volcanoes Shield volcanoes of Australia Stacks of Australia Uninhabited islands of Australia Tourist attractions in New South Wales Volcanic plugs of Australia Volcanoes of the Pacific Ocean Volcanoes of Zealandia World Heritage Sites in Australia Polygenetic shield volcanoes Islands of New South Wales