October 1, 2011

An amazing example of isolated oceanic islands, born of volcanic activity more than 2,000 m under the sea, these islands boast amagnificent topography and are home to numerous endemic species, especially birds.

Based in the South Pacific, 700 km north-east of Sydney, the house is included administratively in New South Wales. The preserve includes some 75% of the land area of  Lord Howe Island and all of  the offshore islands and rocks of significant size in the region.

These are the Admiralty Group; Mutton Bird and Sail Rock; Blackburn (Rabbit) Island; Gower Island; and Ball’s Pyramid, together with several of small islands and rocks.

The seaward boundary follows the mean high water mark and therefore excludes all littoral and marine areas. The entire island group has remarkable volcanic exposures unfamiliar elsewhere.

The main island of Lord Howe measures 10 km from north and south and is nothing more than 2 km in width. It roughly describes a crescent, enclosing a coral reef lagoon on its south-western side. The island’s topography is covered with the southerly Mount Gower and Mount Lidgbird. Only a narrow isthmus of lowland country in the north-central part of the island is habitable. The northern tip consists of steep hillsides culminating in extensive sea cliffs resistant to the northern coastline.

Lord Howe Island is the eroded remnant of a large shield volcano which erupted from the sea floor intermittently for about 500,000 years in the late Miocene (6.5-7 million years ago). The island group represents the exposed peaks of a large volcanic seamount which is about 65 km long and 24 km wide and which rises from ocean depths of over 1,800 m.

Four separate series of volcanic rocks are recognized on the main island group: tuffs, breccia and basalts, with widespread intrusion of basaltic dykes.

The dominant landforming process on Lord Howe since the last of the volcanic eruptions has been marine erosion, which has cut and maintained major cliffs. Slope failure and accumulation of talus at the foot of some cliffs, particularly in the south, have modified their original shape.

The island supports the southern truest coral reef in the world, which is of Pleistocene to Recent Age and differs considerably from more northerly warm water reefs. It is unique in being a transition between the algal and coral reef, due to fluctuations of hot and cold water around the island.

A wide variety of vegetation types has been described for the islands, with the diversity corresponding with the range of habitats. Variable exposure to wind and penetration of salt spray appear to be the main determinants of vegetation occurrence, structure and floristic.

A population of the large forest bat occurs on the Island. No other indigenous native mammals are known. Introduced species, however, include mice, rats and goats.

There are at least 129 native and introduced bird species. Lord Howe is now the only known breeding ground for providence petrel. Fleshy-footed shearwater breeds in large numbers, with possibly half the world’s population present seasonally. Other important species breeding within the preserve include kermadec petrel, black-winged petrel, wedge-tailed shearwater, little shearwater, white-bellied storm petrel, masked booby, and red-tailed tropic bird in greater concentrations than probably anywhere else in the world.

The earliest European discovery of Lord Howe appears to have been in 1788 by the British. A small permanent settlement was established in the 19th century, subsisting on trade with passing ships. There is no recognized evidence of prior Polynesian or Melanesian discovery or settlement.

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• Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• Barrier Reef Reserve System, Belize
• Kakadu National Park, Australia
• Tasmanian Wilderness, Australia

February 19, 2011

Coastal area of Belize is an ideal natural system consisting of a main obstacle to the reef in the northern hemisphere, offshore atolls, several hundred sand banks, mangroves, coastal lagoons and estuaries. System of seven sites illustrate the evolutionary history of reef development and are an important habitat for endangered species like sea turtles, manatees and the American marine crocodile.

The coastal region of Belize is a natural system consisting of the largest reef in the northern hemisphere, offshore atolls, several hundred sand cays, mangrove forests, coastal lagoons and estuaries. The system of seven sites illustrate the evolutionary history of reef development and are an important habitat for endangered species.

Reef stretches from the Mexican border to the north, near the border with Guatemala to the south. Belize submarine shelf and its barrier reef is the second largest coral reef system in the world’s largest reef complex in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Outside the fence are three large atolls: Turneffe Islands, Lighthouse Reef and Glover’s Reef.

Mainland and the offshore reef is a large lagoon, which will increase the breadth and depth from north to south. In the north, the average water depth of 2-3 m above the flat, featureless bottom 20-25 km wide. South of Belize City, the shelf gradually deepens to form a channel between the mainland and the outer surface to a depth of 65 m over the Gulf of Honduras.

The approximately 450 sand cays and mangroves confined within the barrier and atolls vary in size from small sand more ephemeral, permanent islands capable of sustaining human settlements.

A total of 178 terrestrial plant species and 247 taxa of marine life described in this region. There are over 500 species of fish, 65 scleritian corals, hydroids 45 and 350 of seafood in the area, plus a variety of sponges, marine worms and crustaceans. The region hosts a number of species conservation, including the West Indian manatee, the green turtle, hawksbill, loggerhead turtles and American crocodile. The population of West Indian manatees (300-700 people) is probably the largest in the world. Several bird species whose conservation is in the cays and atolls. colonies of seabirds and waterfowl are the major red-footed boobies noddy (3000-4000 people) Half Moon Caye, weapons of Brown on Man O’War Caye, Glover’s Reef and common. Other notable breeding birds are brown pelicans and magnificent frigate birds.

ecosystem of the coral reef of Belize in the Western Hemisphere is distinctive because of its size, variety of types and abundance of reef corals flourishing so pristine conditions. Several unusual features geophysicists, such as the near side by side on the reef shelf edge reef complex maze of barriers and patch the Faros is a relatively deep lagoon storage, types of coral reefs are unusual in a small area, the presence of atolls, and a large mangrove cays offshore.

Shell dump on Mayan sites along the coast and Cayes provide evidence that the reefs have been used for fishing 2500 years ago. Between 300 BC and AD 900, was in the coastal waters probably widely used for fishing by the Mayans and commercial messages, ceremonial centers and cemeteries were established on the Cayes. With the decline of Mayan civilization, the resources of coral probably went largely unused for a number of centuries, though the first Spanish explorers used the Cayes to repair their boats and get fresh water. In the early 17th century, the coastal waters of Belize, however, become a haven for pirates and buccaneers, mostly from Britain, who plundered the Spanish merchant ships and British and survived on the abundant marine resources. Subsequently, most of the pirates and traders Puritan the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, moved to Cayes, fishermen and plantation owners.

Since then, there have been several waves of immigration into the coastal zone, including the Garifuna people, immigrants from Mexico, and later the North Americans and other foreigners who were attracted by the beauty of the reef and its surroundings and make their home in Les Cayes.

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• belize barrier reef facts

• Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• Lord Howe Island Group, Australia
• Kakadu National Park, Australia
• Willandra Lakes Region, Australia

February 17, 2011

The fossil remains of a series of lakes and sand formations that date from the Pleistocene can be found in this region, together with archaeological evidence of human occupation dating from 45-60,000 years ago.

It is a unique landmark in the study of human evolution on the Australian continent. Several well-preserved fossils of giant marsupials also have been found here.

The fossil remains of a series of lakes and sand formations that date from the Pleistocene can be found in this region, as well as archaeological proof of human occupation dating from 45-60,000 years ago.

It is a unique landmark in the study of human evolution on the Australian continent. Several well-preserved fossils of giant marsupials are also found here.

The Willandra Lakes Region is primarily a geological site, with fauna and flora of significant concern in an archaeological sense: the Willandra Lakes may be the best locality for establishing a link between the extinction of the giant marsupial fauna and predation by humans. The Australian geological environment, with its low topographic relief and low energy systems, is unique in the longevity of the landscapes it preserves. The site includes the entire lake and river system from Lake Mulurulu, the latest to hold water, to the Prungle Lakes, dry for more than 15,000 years, and the region is unique on earth.

The Willandra Lakes provide excellent conditions for recording the events of the Pleistocene epoch (when man evolved into his present form), demonstrating how non-glaciated zones responded to the major climatic fluctuations between glacial periods.

When Willandra Billabong Creek ceased to flow and so to replenish the lakes, this dried in series from the Prungle Lakes in the south to Lake Mulurulu in the north over several thousand years; as each lake evaporated, it became an independent system undergoing a basic transformation from fresh water to saline water to dry lake bed.

As long as water remained in a lake, dunes were accumulated along the eastern margins. It is this system of transverse crescent-shaped dunes, called ‘lunettes’, which contain evidence of past hydrological and geochemical environments.

The freshwater lakes concentrated clean quartz sands on eastern beaches, but the lakes became more saline as they dried out, and clay pellets were chipped from the exposed lake floor by high winds to form distinctive clay lunettes.

Such clay dunes are rare in world terms, and the well-preserved fossil examples in the Willandra Lakes region are an important geological resource; the 30 m high Lake Chibnalwood clay lunette is among the largest on the planet.

The Willandra Lakes Region is a remarkable illustration of a site where the economic life of Homo sapiens can be reconstructed, showing an amazing adaptation to local resources and a fascinating interaction between human culture and the changing environment. The fossil landscape remains largely unmodified since the end of the last Pleistocene ice age.

Archaeological discoveries made here are of remarkable value. They include a 26,000-year-old cremation site (the oldest known in the world), a 30,000-year-old ochre burial, the remains of giant marsupials in an excellent state of conservation, and grindstones from 18,000 years ago used to crush wild grass for flour whose age can be compared with that claimed for the earliest seed-grind economies. The region also contains the remains of hearths, some dated to 30,000 years ago.

The location also provides proof of the most distant point of dispersal reached during the course of the last glaciation by Homo sapiens and the earliest economic data in the world for human dependence on freshwater resources, in a pattern paralleled by Aborigines as recently as 100 years ago on the Darling River.

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• Kakadu National Park, Australia
• Mayan Ruins, Uxmal
• Tasmanian Wilderness, Australia
• Lord Howe Island Group, Australia

February 16, 2011

In an area that’s been suffering from severe glaciation, these parks and reserves, with their steep gorges, covering an area of over 1 million ha, constitute one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest on the earth. Remains found in limestone caves verify the human occupation of the area for longer than 20,000 years.
Covering a place of over 1 million hectares, the Tasmanian Wilderness constitutes one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest in the world.

It comprises a contiguous network of reserved lands that extends over much of south-western Tasmania including several coastal islands.

In contrast to the mainland, the island of Tasmania is a rugged region with fold structures in the western half and fault structures in the east, each of which are represented in the property. The fold structure province in the south-west is an extremely rugged and densely vegetated region with north-south oriented mountain ranges and valley systems.

Changing climates have also influenced landscape development, highlighted most recently by late Cainozoic and Pleistocene glacial and periglacial events. Glacial erosion has contributed to spectacular landform features including horns, arêtes, cirques, U-shaped valleys and rock basins (tarns). The coastline has been put through a number of sea-level changes during the glaciations and today provides a classic example of a drowned landscape, as shown by the discordant coastline in the south.

Special landforms associated with the development of karst have formed through the solution of carbonate rocks such as (Precambrian) dolomite and (Ordovician) limestone. Features include cave systems, natural arches, clints and grikes, dolines, karren, pinnacles and blind valleys.

The vegetation has as much that is similar to cool, temperate parts of South America and New Zealand as with the rest of Australia. In addition to climatic and edaphic factors, the vegetation has developed in response to fire. Aboriginal occupation over the last 30,000 years has constituted a major source of fire; more recently, much fire can be related to the interests of fishermen, logging concerns and prospectors.

The fauna is of world importance because it includes an unusually high proportion of endemic species and relict groups of ancient lineage.

As a result of the diverse topography, geology, soils and vegetation in colaboration with harsh and variable climatic conditions combining to create a wide array of animal habitats, the fauna is correspondingly diverse.

The insularity of  Tasmania, and of the Tasmanian Wilderness in particular, has contributed to its uniqueness and has helped to protect it from the impact of exotic species which has seriously affected the mainland fauna.

Tasmania was cut off from mainland Australia by the flooding of Bass Strait at least 8000 years ago, thereby isolating the aboriginal inhabitants.

The Tasmanian Aborigines were, until the advent of the European explorer Abel Tasman, the longest isolated human group in world history, surviving some 500 generations without outside influence.

Surveys and excavations of inland river valleys have located 37 cave sites, all considered to have already been occupied between 30,000 and 11,500 years ago on such basis as the finds. Recent discoveries of rock art at three cave sites have shown that this painting had a ceremonial significance; hand stencils predominated.

Stone artefact scatters and quarries and rock shelters in the Tasmanian highlands indicate a distinctive adaptation to this subalpine environment in the later Holocene. The south coast contains a range of shell middens; evidence available so far suggests changing patterns of shellfish exploitation over several thousand years until the arrival of Europeans in the early 19th century.

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• Kakadu National Park, Australia
• Willandra Lakes Region, Australia
• Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• Ephesus, Turkey