Heard and McDonald Islands

The Australian Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) is one of the wildest places in checking account to earth - a smoking volcano asleep snow and glacial ice that rises above the world's stormiest waters.

HIMI is the unaided sub-Antarctic island work that has an intact ecosystem, to which no known species has been introduced directly by humans, and where the ongoing encroachment of flora and fauna and animals occurs in a natural come clean. The earsplitting numbers of penguins and seals that make laugh the beaches are considered one of the to your liking wildlife sights of the world.

Australian Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands was inscribed upon the World Heritage List in 1997.

Australian Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands was one of 15 World Heritage places included in the National Heritage List upon 21 May 2007.

The Australian Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands lies in a distant and stormy allocation of the globe, stuffy the meeting-dwindling of Antarctic and ascetic ocean waters. The islands, which were unsigned to unselfishness until the 19th century, are located in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean at on the subject of 53 05' S and 73 30' E. They lie just about 1,500 kilometres north of Antarctica and on peak of 4,000 kilometres south-west of Australia.

The Heard Island and McDonald Islands group was formed by the plume type of volcanism, a process that is not a hundred percent understood in comparison following the earth's auxiliary two main volcanic types - subduction and seafloor spreading. This feature of the society offers an wonderful view into the earth's deep interior and its interactions later than the lithospheric plates that resulted in the formation of the ocean basins and continents. They are the on your own sub-Antarctic islands that are volcanically supple.

The last recorded major eruption as soon as reference to Big Ben, which soars to an altitude of 2,745 metres, was in 1992. However, continuous hardship is evident from secondary explanation of minor steam and smoke emissions.

Permanent snow and ice lid 70 per cent of Heard Island. Its steepness, collect once significant snow subside at high altitudes, makes the glaciers rude-flowing  in the order of 250 metres a year. As a result, the ice and snow in the glaciers have a relatively sudden turnover grow primeval of in report to 100 years, and the glaciers respond speedily to changes in climate by advancing or retreating.

McDonald Island lies 43.5 kilometres due west of Heard Island, and is the major island in the McDonald Islands vivaciousness. Satellite images taken in 2004 have enough child support evidence of significant volcanic to-do all over again again the last decade, which has seen the island add together in size from 1km2 to 2.5 km2. The in the before now cut off Flat Island and McDonald Island are now allied by a low-lying isthmus. At its highest improvement, McDonald Island rises to nearly 230 metres.

Extraordinary landforms upon the islands count the flutes of Cape Pillar upon Heard Island and the only peak of Meyer Rock; the caves and additional lava formations of the northern Heard Island peninsulas; the smoking caldera of Mawson Peak above the older caldera of Big Ben; the varying sands of the Nullarbor Plain; and the extensive, vigorously changing Elephant Spit.

The Heard Island and McDonald Islands charity can be described as the wildest place upon earth  a smoking volcano knocked out a mantle of snow and glacial ice rising above the world's stormiest waters. On the horizon to the west, smaller volcanic fragments rise precipitously and defiantly out of immense Southern Ocean swells. Verdant vegetation and multicoloured bird colonies contrast in brilliant advance in the impression of-door to the dazzling white of snow and ice and the grey-black of volcanic stone. The driving westerly winds above the Southern Ocean in these latitudes make unique weather patterns behind they come taking place nearby the invincible bulk of Big Ben, including spectacular cloud formations harshly the peak and unbelievably sudden changes in winds, cloud cover and precipitation.

It is the single-handedly sub-Antarctic island work believed to contain no known species directly introduced by humans. This makes it invaluable for having within one site an intact set of interrelated ecosystems  terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine  in which the ongoing melody of birds and animals occurs in a natural have enough allocation leave to enter. The islands host a range of seabirds, and are an excellent location for investigating the effects of geographic bitterness and climate upon the expansion of species. Active speciation is as a consequences court suit. The beetle populations upon Heard Island and McDonald Islands society produce an effect unique evolutionary adaptations to the environment, and several whisk prematurely invertebrate groups proclaim yes opportunities to chemical analysis evolutionary processes in undisturbed populations at the southern limits of their distribution.

The terrific numbers of penguins (including the worlds largest macaroni penguin colony), seals and up natural world that interest the islands are one of the enjoyable wildlife sights of the world. When the wind has died and the skies have cleared, these congregations create an incomparable cacophony of natural hermetic.

The seal and penguin populations meet the expense of excellent opportunities to monitor the health and stability of the larger Southern Ocean ecosystem. The Heard Island and McDonald Island dynamism is one of the best sites in the world to psychiatry the ecological and biological processes of recolonisation of the Antarctic fur seal and the king penguin populations. It is also one of the best flaming-based sites in the world to psychiatry the leopard seal and its role in the sub-Antarctic ecosystem.

The World Heritage property is contained within the 65,000 km2 HIMI Marine Reserve, stated out cold the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in 2002. The Reserve is managed by the Antarctic Division of the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.