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[56] [57] The islands of the Great Barrier Reef also support 2,195 known plant species; three of these are endemic. The northern islands have 300–350 plant species which tend to be woody, whereas the southern islands have 200 which tend to be herbaceous; the Whitsunday region is the most diverse, supporting 1,141 species.
Indonesia is the world's largest island country by area (1,904,569 km 2), and by total number of islands (17,504 islands). [4] It is also the world's most populous island country, with a population of over 270 million (the fourth most populous country in the world, after India , China , and the United States ).
Palau, [a] officially the Republic of Palau, [b] [8] is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean.The Republic of Palau consists of approximately 340 islands and is the western part of the Caroline Islands, while the eastern and central parts make up the Federated States of Micronesia.
Barrier Islands can be observed on every continent on Earth, except Antarctica. They occur primarily in areas that are tectonically stable, such as "trailing edge coasts" facing (moving away from) ocean ridges formed by divergent boundaries of tectonic plates, and around smaller marine basins such as the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. [7]
The umbrella term Pacific Islands has taken on several meanings. [1] Sometimes it is used to refer only to the islands defined as lying within Oceania. [2] [3] [4] At other times, it is used to refer to the islands of the Pacific Ocean that were previously colonized by the British, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, or Japanese, or by the United States.
The lagoon is not the former volcanic crater. For the atoll to persist, the coral reef must be maintained at the sea surface, with coral growth matching any relative change in sea level (sinking of the island or rising oceans). [4] An alternative model for the origin of atolls is called the antecedent karst model.
Great Barrier Island has been linked to the North Island for most of the last 18 million years, by a land bridge to the south along the Colville Channel. [13] Approximately 17,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum , the Hauraki Gulf was a low-lying coastal plain as sea levels were over 100 metres lower than present day levels. [ 14 ]
The Pacific plate had previously been subducted under the Australian Plate. When that changed, it had the effect of uplifting the portion of the continent that is modern-day New Zealand. The convergent plate boundary that runs northwards from New Zealand's North Island is called the Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone. This subduction zone is ...