A group of four islands in the southeastern Pacific, administered by Britain under the Governor of Fiji. The area of the colony is 48 km2 (18.5 sq mi). Pitcairn proper lies at 25.04S and 130.06W, 6800 km (4200 mi) southwest of Panama and 5100 km (3200 mi) northeast of New Zealand, Pitcairn proper (area of 2 sq mi; 5.2 km2) is the only inhabited island of this group that includes Oeno, Henderson, and Ducie Islands. Its people are descendants of mutineers from the H.M.S. Bounty (1790) and Polynesian women from Tahiti. Some migrated to Norfolk Island (q.v.), though many returned.
The climate is warm all year, mostly under the influence of the SE Trades except for brief reversals during the southern summer. There is a good rainfall and much of the island is cultivated.
Only one of the islands is volcanic, Pitcairn (5 km across and 333 m elevation), a silica-rich basalt with some hypersthene andesite, deeply weathered and cliffed without fringing reefs. Oenois an atoll 3 km in diameter...
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References
Davis, W. M., 1928. “The coral reef problem,” Am. Geog. Soc. Spec. Publ., 9.
Marshall, P., 1918. “Notes on the geology of the Tubuai Islands and of Pitcairn,” N.Z. Inst. Trans. Proc., 1, 278–279.
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© 1975 Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Inc.
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Fairbridge, R.W. (1975). Pitcairn islands . In: World Regional Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31081-1_92
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31081-1_92
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