#millennium (caroline) atoll

[sitting-on-me-bum]

With measuring tape and notepad, marine ecologist Enric Ballesteros surveys the organisms living on a healthy reef in the islands. When author Enric Sala and his team first visited here in 2009, they found these reefs in a pristine state, with a profusion of species, many of them rare.

Jon Betz/National Geographic

This coral reef resurrected itself — and showed scientists how to replicate it

A parrotfish scrapes off and eats turf algae from coral skeletons at Millennium (Caroline) Atoll. This promotes the growth of pink, rock-hard crustose coralline algae — the best surface for coral larvae to settle on and rebuild the reef.

Enric Sala/National Geographic

A school of small reef fish, one of many fish species that inhabit these waters.

Manu San Félix/National Geographic

[myfeeds]

Long distance voyaging among the Pacific Islands

In order to better understand the relationship between these Polynesian societies of the western Pacific, Melanesia and Micronesia — often referred to as “Polynesian Outliers” — a multidisciplinary team of researchers analysed the geochemical signature of stone artefacts collected in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and the Caroline Islands between 1978 and 2019. An international research team, led by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, was able to identify the geological origin of these artefacts after comparing their geochemical and isotopic compositions with reference datasets of natural rocks and archaeological quarries in the region. The connection to the Polynesian homeland Adzes are versatile cutting tools comparable to axes. Among the eight adzes or adze fragments the researchers analysed, six were sourced to the same large fortified quarry complex of Tatagamatau on Tutuila Island (American Sāmoa), which is located more than 2,500 kilometres away in the Polynesian homeland. “Tatagamatau adzes were among the most disseminated items across West and East Polynesia, and the sourcing of Taumako and Emae adzes suggest bursts of long-distance mobility towards the Outliers similar to those that led to the settlement of East Polynesia,” says lead author Aymeric Hermann, researcher at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and associate researcher at the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Hermann points out that the transportation of such socially valued items — often passed down for generations among Polynesian chiefly families — suggests carefully planned voyages, rather than accidental landfalls. The geochemical investigation of stone artefacts from the Polynesian Outliers also provides critical information on inter-island transfers between the Polynesians and their neighbours in the western Pacific, specifically between the Banks Islands and Central Vanuatu, and between the Bismarck and the Caroline Islands. The team highlights that such inter-island contacts are signals that Polynesian sailors might have played an important role in the reappraisal of long-distance mobility and in the distribution of specific material culture items and technologies such as shell adzes, back-strap loom, and obsidian points among the mosaic of Pacific Island societies in the western Pacific during the last millennium A.D. “A recent study describes an obsidian stemmed point as a chiefly heirloom found on Kapingamarangi Island with a geochemical signature matching an obsidian source on Lou Island in the Admiralties: this is an exciting find that echoes our identification of a basalt flake from mainland New Britain on that same atoll,” adds Hermann. Long-distance mobility in the past In the Pacific region, geochemical sourcing has been particularly successful at locating sources of stone artefacts and tracing the transport of specific items across distant islands and archipelagos. Such material evidence of long-distance inter-island voyaging shows that Pacific Island societies were never completely isolated from one another. These patterns of interaction are central to our understanding of the deeply intertwined history of cultural systems in the Pacific. In this study, atomic emission spectroscopy and mass spectrometry were used to measure concentration of oxides, trace elements and ratios of radiogenic isotopes in order to identify geological provenances with a high level of accuracy. Thanks to the collaboration of experts in archaeology, geochemistry and data science, a cutting-edge approach to geochemical sourcing was developed, which involves the use of computer-assisted comparisons with open-access databases.

[ron424-blog1]

sorry!

The 13 most beautiful sunsets of my world trip

Without artificial lighting, moving objects can only be seen at a distance of up to 300 metres. The summit is sometimes regarded as the first country in the world to receive the light of the new day. Tongue-breaking consonant sequences as in the Slavic languages do not exist in Samoan; here each consonant is followed by at least one vowel. Now I am sitting comfortably again in front of the warm fireplace, as today, despite of the sun, it was quite fresh today and in the evening it still gets cooler. The earth's crust is worldwide on average km thick. In the Vulcanic Valley the crust is 3-4 km thick. It is also much more impressive in reality than on the photo. Unfortunately we cannot see such a sky here. Do you want to dive your feet or even more into the coldest spring on New Zealand? Or escape the tourists at the Pupu-Springs and still see pure water? When we reached the top we were compensated for everything. It was really great to see the sunrise from up there. But you best make your own picture of it. {

If the sea stays flat it's no problem - the sunrise alone is worth getting up early.you have a look at the milky way with a cloudless sky, a picture that you will never forget for a lifetime. You will find all details in our privacy policy. That would really be a Y2K bug, but it would be a step further towards globalization. Of course, the time of sunrise also depends on the height of the horizon and the observer. In the case of Caroline Island, however, this is irrelevant. Kiribati, at any rate, has quickly renamed the island - an atoll with 38 small islands - "Millennium Island" and is expecting business.

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