Norfolk Island and its companion islets of Philip and Nepean lie midway between New Zealand and New Caledonia on the Norfolk Island Ridge at 29°05′S and 167°57′E. The island is approximately 5 km by 8 km, is bounded by cliffs 50 m to 90 m high except for three shallow bays, and rises to 315 m in two perks. Its soil is fertile, and its climate is mild, with an annual rainfall of 1100 mm.
Captain Cook discovered the island in 1774. Up until 1855 it was used as a penal settlement, and in the following year the descendants of the Bounty mutiny were transferred here from Pitcairn Island. Since 1913 Norfolk Island has been a Territory of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is connected by an air service to Sydney and Auckland, and enjoys a modest tourist trade.
Following brief early reports on the geology by Laing, R. M. Laing (1912), Speight, R. Speight (1912), and Hutton, J. T. Hutton and Stephens, C. G. Stephens (1956), recent work (MacDougall, I. McDougall and Aziz-ur-Rahman...
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References
Coleman, P. J., and Veevers, J. J., 1971. “Microfossils from Philip Island indicate a minimum age of Lower Miocene for the Norfolk Ridge, South-west Pacific,” Search, 2(8), 289.
Green, T. H., 1973. “Petrology and geochemistry of basalts from Norfolk Island,” J. Geol. Soc. Aust., 20(3), 259–272.
Hutton, J. T., and Stephens, C. G., 1956. “The palaeopedology of Norfolk Island,” J. Soil Sci., 7, 255–269.
Jones, J. G., and McDougall, I., 1973. “Geological history of Norfolk and Philip Islands, southwest Pacific Ocean,” Geol. Soc. Austral.
Laing, R. M., 1912. “Notes on the chief physiographic features of Norfolk Island,” Trans. N.Z. Inst., 45, 323–326.
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McDougall, I., and Aziz-ur-Rahman, 1972. “Age of the Gauss-Matuyama boundary and of the Kaena and Mammoth events,” Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 14, 367–380.
Shor, G. G., Kirk, H. K., and Menard, H. W., 1971. “Crustal structure of the Melanesian area,” J. Geophys. Res., 76(11), 2562–2586.
Speight, R., 1912. “On a collection of rocks from Norfolk Island,” Trans. N.Z. Inst., 45, 326–331.
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© 1975 Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Inc.
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Veevers, J.J. (1975). Norfolk island . In: World Regional Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31081-1_84
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31081-1_84
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