Lisianski Island ( Hawaiian: ''Papa‘āpoho'') is one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, with a land area of and a maximum elevation of above sea level. It is a low, flat sand and coral island about northwest of

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. The island is surrounded by

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock o ...

s and shoals, including the extensive Neva Shoals. Access to the island is possible only by helicopter or by boat via a narrow sandy inlet on the southeastern side of the island.

Administration

Politically, Lisianski Island is part of the

City and County of Honolulu Honolulu County (officially known as the City and County of Honolulu, formerly Oahu County) is a consolidated city–county in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The city–county includes both the city of Honolulu (the state's capital and largest cit ...

Bryan, p. 10. in the State of Hawaii. However, as part of the

Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge Hawaiian may refer to: * Native Hawaiians, the current term for the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants * Hawaii state residents, regardless of ancestry (only used outside of Hawaii) * Hawaiian language Historic uses * ...

, it is administered by the

United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

. It has no resident human population.

Geology and topography

Lisianski Island is made of

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

that caps the submerged summit of an extinct shield volcano that was active about 20 million years ago. Lisianski Island is undergoing the slow process of

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is dis ...

, and features a depression between two tall sand dunes, that is thought to once have been a

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

like the one on

Laysan Laysan (; haw, italics=no, Kauō ), located northwest of Honolulu at , is one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It comprises one land mass of , about in size. It is an atoll of sorts, although the land completely surrounds a shallow c ...

, its nearest neighbor. For this reason, the island's selected Hawaiian name, ''Papa‘āpoho'', means "island with a depression". Over three-quarters of the

Bonin petrel The Bonin petrel or'' nunulu'' (''Pterodroma hypoleuca'') is a seabird in the family Procellariidae. It is a small gadfly petrel that is found in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Its secretive habits, remote breeding colonies and limited range have re ...

s that nest in

nest here. Recent discovery of subfossils on the island indicate that

Laysan duck The Laysan duck (''Anas laysanensis''), also known as the Laysan teal, is a dabbling duck endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Fossil evidence reveals that Laysan ducks once lived across the entire archipelago, but today survive only on Laysan Is ...

populations once occurred on the island, possibly inhabiting the former lagoon.

History

Lisianski Island is named after

Yuri Lysianskyi Yuri Fedorovych Lysianskyi (also spelled as Urey Lisiansky and Lisianski and Lysyansky) ( uk, Юрій Федорович Лисянський, ; russian: Ю́рий Фёдорович Лися́нский, , 1(13) April 1773 – 6 March 1837) wa ...

, a

Russian Imperial The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

explorer and an officer in the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from ...

. Lysianskyi was the commanding officer of the

Russian-American Company The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty (russian: Под высочайшим Его Императорского Величества покровительством Российская-Американс� ...

's merchant sloop ''

Neva The Neva (russian: Нева́, ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of , it ...

'', which was on an exploration mission as part of the

first Russian circumnavigation The first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth took place from August 1803 to August 1806 and was carried out on two ships, the '' Nadezhda'' and the ''Neva'', under the commands of Adam Johann von Krusenstern and Yuri Lisyansky, respectively. Th ...

of the world when she ran aground on the island in 1805. Lysianskyi reported the island to be of little interest, except insofar as its surrounding reefs and shoals posed a threat to passing vessels. King

Kamehameha IV Kamehameha IV (Alekanetero ʻIolani Kalanikualiholiho Maka o ʻIouli Kūnuiākea o Kūkāʻilimoku; anglicized as Alexander Liholiho) (February 9, 1834 – November 30, 1863), reigned as the fourth monarch of Hawaii under the title ''Ke Aliʻi ...

claimed the island for the Kingdom of Hawaii on 10 May 1857. In 1890, the North Pacific

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 phosph ...

and

Fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

Company acquired a twenty-year lease on the island from the Kingdom of Hawaii. After the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, Lisianski Island became part of the Republic of Hawaii in 1894. On August 12, 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii, including Lisianski Island, and Lisianski Island was included in the Territory of Hawaii upon its creation on April 30, 1900. In 1909, Lisianski Island became part of the new Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation — which later became the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge — established by U.S. President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

. Prior to this, there had been concern about the

poaching Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set a ...

of birds on the island."Lisianski Island and Neva Shoals"

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

. Retrieved 12-22-2011."NWHI: About: Lisianski Island"
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Multi-Agency Education Project. Retrieved October 12, 2011 When Hawaii became a

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

in August 1959, Lisianski Island became part of the new State of Hawaii. On June 15, 2006, it was included in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

Neva Shoals

Neva Shoals is a shallow

directly southeast of Lisianski Island covering ,"Lisianski Island"
, a University of Hawai'i webpage more than half the size of

Oahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O� ...

. Lisiansky named Neva Shoals, after his ship, ''Neva''. The shoal is shallow and makes access to the island difficult. The reef has been described by divers as a "

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

garden"&nbs

because of the great variety of coral. Twenty-four types of coral have been identified at the reefs surrounding Lisianski.

Reef fish Coral reef fish are fish which live amongst or in close relation to coral reefs. Coral reefs form complex ecosystems with tremendous biodiversity. Among the myriad inhabitants, the fish stand out as colourful and interesting to watch. Hundreds ...

are abundant, including predators. Lisianski map lrg

Bibliography

Lisianski Island: Block 1014, Census Tract 114.98, Honolulu County, Hawaii
United States Census Bureau. *M. Rauzon, ''Isles of Refuge: Wildlife and History of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands'', University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu: 2001.

References

External links

Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Multi-Agency Education Project – Lisianski
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080618005509/http://www.hawaiireef.noaa.gov/about/lisianski.html Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reservebr>Google Street View
{{authority control Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral reefs of the United States Reefs of the Pacific Ocean Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain Miocene volcanoes Paleogene Oceania Cenozoic Hawaii Important Bird Areas of Hawaii