Lopevi (or Lopévi) is an uninhabited island in

Malampa Province Malampa is one of the six provinces of Vanuatu, located in the center of the country. It consists of three main islands: Malakula, Ambrym and Paama, and takes its name from the first syllable of their names. It includes a number of other islands ...

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...

. It lies to the southeast of

Ambrym Ambrym is a volcanic island in Malampa Province in the archipelago of Vanuatu. Volcanic activity on the island includes lava lakes in two craters near the summit. Etymology Ambrym (also known as ''Ambrin'', ''"ham rim"'' in the Ranon language ...

and east of

Paama Paama (Paama language: VoumCrowley, Terry. (1982). ''The Paamese Language of Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, Series B – No. 87''. Canberra: ANU Printing Services.) is a small island in Malampa Province, Vanuatu. The island is about 8 km ...

.UNEP Islands Directory
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Geography

Lopevi consists of the 7-km-wide cone of the active

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and per ...

by the same name. It reaches a peak of 1413 m above sea level, the tallest point in central Vanuatu. It has erupted at least 22 times since 1862. The island was formerly inhabited, but in 1960 the population moved to nearby

or Epi because of the recurrent danger. Lopevi is on the

New Hebrides Plate The New Hebrides Plate, sometimes called the Neo-Hebridean Plate, is a minor tectonic plate located in the Pacific Ocean, near the island country of Vanuatu. The plate is bounded on the southwest by the Indo-Australian Plate which is subducting ...

, where it lies above the

subduct Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

Australian Plate The Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate in the eastern and, largely, southern hemispheres. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, Australia remained connected to India and Antarctica until approximately when India broke ...

to the west. Because there are no earthquakes between 50 and 200 km below the Earth's surface, it is thought that the subducted plate has fractured, and does not appear between these depths.

References

External links

John Seach site, with photographs

Uninhabited islands of Vanuatu Malampa Province Volcanoes of Vanuatu Holocene stratovolcanoes Active volcanoes {{Vanuatu-geo-stub