Transcript Oceania - Mr. Campbell

Oceania
Oceania
•The Pacific Islands or Oceania contains more than
25,000 islands and islets of 25 nations and territories
across the Pacific Islands
•Although the Pacific Islands are scattered across
millions of square kilometers, their total land area is just
1,261,456 sq km (487,051 sq mi)
• - slightly larger than South Africa, slightly smaller than
Peru, and four-fifths the size of Alaska.
Oceania Continued
• The islands of New Guinea, New Zealand, and
Hawaii cover 93 percent of the land area
– The remaining thousands of islands cover34,494 sq
mi
– Less than the American state of Indiana.
• New Guinea, and the Indonesian province of
Irian Jaya is the second largest island in the
world
– 1st is Greenland
• New Zealand’s South Island and North Island,
Oceania’s next largest islands, are the world’s
12th and 14th largest islands, respectively.
Melanesia, Micronesia and
Polynesia
• The Pacific Islands are usually divided into three
sub regions:
• 1.Melanesia (the prefix mela, meaning dark or
black, refers to the dark complexion of many
Melanesian people)
• 2.Micronesia (the prefix micro, meaning small,
refers to the small size of Micronesia’s islands
and atolls)
• 3.Polynesia (the prefix poly, meaning many,
refers to the many islands of Polynesia).
Melanesia
• Melanesia stretches in a 5600-km (3500-mi) arc off the
northern and eastern coast of Australia.
• From northwest to southeast, Melanesia includes:
• 1. New Guinea, lying just north of Australia;
• 2.The Bismarck Archipelago, belonging to Papua New
Guinea
• 3.Smaller archipelagos of Papua New Guinea
• 4.The Solomon Islands
• 5. The many islands of the nation Vanuatu
• 6.The Fiji Islands (an island nation commonly known as
Fiji).
Micronesia
• Micronesia has five main island groups.
• 1.The Caroline Islands lie north of the equator from New
Guinea and belong mostly to the Federated States of
Micronesia, a self-governing country in free association
with the United States.
• 2.The Mariana Islands, which make up the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a selfgoverning U.S. commonwealth
• 3. Guam, an unincorporated U.S. territory.
• 4.The Marshall Islands, an island group and republic in
free association with the United States.
• 5. The nation of Kiribati, which straddles the equator. The
tiny nation of Nauru, a single island west of Kiribati, is also
counted as part of Micronesia.
Polynesia
• Polynesia is larger than both Melanesia and Micronesia
combined.
• The southwestern tip of the Polynesian triangle is the
nation of New Zealand, lying southeast of Australia and
far south of the tropic of Capricorn.
• The southeastern tip is Easter Island, part of Chile lying
just south of the tropic of Capricorn three-fourths of the
distance from Australia to South America.
• The triangle’s northwestern tip is Hawaii, straddling the
tropic of Cancer halfway between North America and
Asia.
• These three tips, however, are outliers: Most of
Polynesia is clustered just east of Melanesia south of the
equator.
• Farther east lie the five archipelagos of the French
territory French Polynesia
What about Australia?
• Oceania is sometimes defined to include
Australia, but because of Australia’s continental
size and its distinct geography, climate, and
cultures it is more often considered a separate
region of the world.
• Similarly, the Philippine, Indonesian, and
Japanese archipelagos, which border Melanesia
and Micronesia, bear a greater resemblance to
the rest of Asia than the Pacific Islands do.
• We will study these areas as part of this unit but
keep in mind they are considered separate
geographically
The Natural Environment of
Oceania
• The islands of the Pacific are often classified
according to their altitudes as high or low
islands.
• High islands are further classified as either
– 1.continental
– 2. oceanic.
• The continental high islands were once part of
the eastern edge of the Australian and Asian
continents and are composed of metamorphic
rocks
• Continental islands include New Guinea and
most islands of Melanesia, which together
account for more than three-fourths of Oceania’s
land area.
Oceanic High lands
• The oceanic high islands, sometimes called
volcanic islands, are divided from the continental
high islands
• The oceanic islands are composed of volcanic
materials. (similar to sea floor spreading)
• The islands, then, are merely the tops of
undersea mountains.
• Typically, the mountains (and islands) extend in
curving chains.
• These high oceanic islands are common in
Polynesia and Micronesia.
• The island of Hawaii, contains the peaks Mauna
Loa and Mauna Kea, which are considered the
world’s largest mountains
Low Islands
• Like the high islands, low islands are also further
classified into two subgroups:
• 1.eroded volcanic islands
• 2. Atolls.
• The eroded volcanic islands are much like the
oceanic, or volcanic, high islands, only they have
been eroded to such a point that they are barely
above sea level.
• Examples of these islands include the smaller,
lower islands of Hawaii.
Atolls
• Atolls are a series of islands that form a rough
ring enclosing a central body of water called a
lagoon.
• The various islets of the ring are called motus
and are separated by sea channels that lead
into the lagoon.
• An atoll is continually built upward from an
underlying coral reef, itself formed from the
skeleton of a tiny, lime-secreting animal called a
polyp.
• Typically, some parts of an atoll are above sea
level while other parts remain below.
Climate
• Most of Oceania has a humid subtropical
• These areas have a similar climates
• Temperatures typically average close to 27° C
(80° F) most of the year.
• In the area from about 30° north of the equator
to about 30° south of the equator, the westwardmoving trade winds prevail.
• These steady winds carried the sailing vessels
of European traders
• Where the northern and southern trade winds
meet near the equator they cancel each other
out, creating the doldrums, a region of little or no
wind more formally called the Intertropical
Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
Soils and Vegetation
• The vegetation of the Pacific Islands varies by
island type. The continental islands have
vegetation typical of tropical climates:
– 1.Mangrove forests rim the island.
– 2.The interior is typically rain forest or monsoon
forest.
• Higher elevations have temperate forests,
including pine trees.
• Some areas of continental islands have fertile
soil
• Soils on coral atolls are thin, sandy, and much
less fertile.
• Vegetation consists of shrubs, small trees,
grasses, and the very common coconut palm.
• However, on low islands that receive heavier
rainfall, some forests exist.
The People of the Pacific Islands
• Many different ethnic groups make up the
people of the Pacific Islands
– Reflects various migrants to the area over several
thousand years.
• These peoples can be traced to Southeast Asia;
Europeans and Americans; Chinese; and
Indians, found mostly in Fiji.
• More recent immigrants include Vietnamese to
New Caledonia and Vanuatu, and Filipinos to
Micronesia
Population
• The entire Pop of Oceania is 35.7 Million,
but Australia is over 22 million
• Oceania – Australia is 13.6 Million people
• Papua New Guinea is the most populated
of the Island Nations (5.1 million)
– Coral sea Island (4) and Wake Islands (12)
are both small and have a tiny population