Introduction
Some of the Pacific larger islands (such as New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Japan) are described and discussed in other chapters, which also include:
New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands
The Society Islands , including Tahiti.
For Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, see New South Wales
For the Chatham Islands, see New Zealand
For the Galapagos Islands, see Ecuador
Geographical Setting
The divergent plate boundary of the East Pacific Rise lies to the east of the region and is the formative source of the Pacific tectonic plate. In moving to the WNW, the plate passes over a number of hot spots causing the eastern Pacific volcanic island chains of Hawaii, Pitcairn, French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands, and island chains further to the west such as the Samoas are also volcanic hotspot remnants.
The Pacific plate meets and mostly subducts beneath the Australian plate to the east of the main islands of Tonga, Fiji, and Vanuatu and north of the Solomons and...
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Ellison, J. (2010). Other Pacific Islands. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_249
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