One more about Kermadec Islands

The Kermadec Islands are an island arc in the South Pacific Ocean.

For more information on Kermadec Islands, visit Britannica.com.

Located northeast of Auckland, N.Z., it includes Raoul, Macauley, and Curtis islands and l’Esperance Rock, and it has a total land area of 13 sq mi.

Seamounts North and South of the Kermadec Islands are an extension of the ridge running from Tonga to New Zealand.

Explored in the late 18th century by the British and the French, the islands were annexed to New Zealand in 1887.

There are several other volcanoes in the chain that do not reach sea level, but form seamounts with between 65 and 1500 m of water above their peaks.

The islands are uninhabited, except for the permanently manned Raoul Island Station, a government meteorological and radio station and hostel for Department of Conservation officers and volunteers that has been maintained since 1937 on the northern terraces of Raoul Island, about 50 m in elevation above the cliffs of Fleetwood Bluff.

It is dominated by woody Myosporum obscurum and Coprosma petiolata and the herbaceous species Asplenium obtusatum, Cyperus ustulatus, Disphyma australe, and Scirpus nodosus.

Although introduced cats, rats, and goats have had a catastrophic impact on flora and fauna, the islands are slowly being restored to their former glory through active management by the New Zealand government.

Predation by rats and cats reduced the seabird colonies on the main islands from millions of birds to tens of thousands.

The islands lie within 29° to 31.5° south latitude and 178° to 179° west longitude, 800 – 1000 km northeast of New Zealand’s North Island, and a similar distance southwest of Tonga.

The islands are a volcanic island arc, formed at the convergent boundary where the Pacific Plate subducts under the Indo-Australian Plate.

Kermadec islands are home to 113 native species of vascular plants, of which 23 are endemic, along with mosses , lichens and fungi.

The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A strong earthquake occurred about 40 km S of Raoul Island, Kermadec Islands or about 1050 km NE of Auckland, New Zealand at 9:15 PM MDT, Jan 30, 2007.

Lower forests have an understory of Myrsine kermadecensis, Lobelia anceps, Poa polyphylla, Coprosma acutifolia, and Coriaria arborea.

Polynesian people settled the Kermadec Islands in around the fourteenth century , but when Europeans reached the area in 1788 they found no inhabitants.

The islands lie along the undersea Kermadec Ridge, which runs southwest from the islands towards the North Island of New Zealand and northeast towards Tonga.

Overgrazing by goats eliminated the forests of Macauley Island, leaving open grasslands, and altered the understory of Raoul Island.

The greatest impact of humans has been indirect: the introduction of mammals, especially Polynesian rats with the Maori, goats and cats in the 1800s, and Norway rats after a shipwreck in 1921.

Rats and cats reduced the seabird population of Raoul and Macauley Islands from more than 1 million to a population of from 20,000 to 40,000 in less than 150 years.

Two endemic tree ferns, Cyathea milnei and the rare and endangered Cyathea kermadecensis, are also found in the forests.

Metrosideros kermadecensis is the dominant forest tree, forming a 10 – 15 meter high canopy.

There have been no reports of damage.

The introduced Alocasia macrorrhiza was formerly widespread in the understory, but is declining since goats were eradicated.

A meteorological communications station was built on Raoul, the largest island, in 1937, but permanent settlement is discouraged.

Located 1,000 km northeast of North Cape, New Zealand, the subtropical moist forest of the Kermadec Islands supports an incredible diversity and abundance of seabirds breeding amid a luxuriant forest of red-flowered Pohutukawa trees.

There are two passerines present, the tui and the silver-eye , and 5 introduced passerines.

Still present are 14 species, including 10 that breed nowhere else in New Zealand and 3 that are breeding endemics to the Kermadecs and a few other Pacific island groups.

The climate is subtropical with a maximum mean monthly temperature of 22.4 C in February and a minimum mean monthly temperature of 16.0 C in August.

Raoul and Curtis Islands remain active with almost-daily earthquakes, and small eruptions periodically destroy vegetation in the calderas.