Oceania is a region made upwardly of thousands of islands throughout the Fundamental and South Pacific Bounding main. It includes Commonwealth of australia, the smallest continent in terms of total land area. Nigh of Australia and Oceania is nether the Pacific, a vast body of water that is larger than all the Earth's continental landmasses and islands combined. The name "Oceania" justly establishes the Pacific Ocean as the defining characteristic of the continent.

Oceania is dominated past the nation of Commonwealth of australia. The other ii major landmasses of Oceania are the microcontinent of Zealandia, which includes the country of New Zealand, and the eastern one-half of the island of New Guinea, fabricated up of the nation of Papua New Republic of guinea. Oceania also includes three island regions: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia (including the U.Southward. state of Hawaii).

Oceania's physical geography, environment and resources, and homo geography can be considered separately.

Oceania can be divided into three island groups: continental islands, loftier islands, and low islands. The islands in each grouping are formed in unlike means and are made up of dissimilar materials. Continental islands have a variety of physical features, while high and low islands are adequately compatible in their physical geography.

Continental Islands

Continental islands were once attached to continents before sea level changes and tectonic activity isolated them. Tectonic activity refers to the motion and collision of different sections, or plates, of the Earth's chaff.

Commonwealth of australia, Zealandia, and New Guinea are continental islands. These 3 regions share some concrete features. All iii take mount ranges or highlands—the Bang-up Dividing Range in Australia; the Northward Island Volcanic Plateau and Southern Alps in New Zealand; and the New Republic of guinea Highlands in Papua New Guinea. These highlands are fold mountains, created as tectonic plates pressed together and pushed land upwardly. New Zealand and Papua New Republic of guinea as well have volcanic features as a result of tectonic activity.

Although they share some landscape features, each of these regions has distinct physical features that resulted from unlike ecology processes. Commonwealth of australia's landscape is dominated by the Outback, a region of deserts and semi-arid land. The Outback is a result of the continent's large inland plains, its location along the dry out Tropic of Capricorn, and its proximity to cool, dry, southerly winds. New Zealand's glaciers are a effect of the islands' high elevations and proximity to cool, moisture-bearing winds. Papua New Guinea's highland rain forests are a issue of the island's high elevations, proximity to tropical, moisture-bearing winds, and location right below the warm Equator.

High Islands

High islands, as well called volcanic islands, are created equally volcanic eruptions build up land over time. These eruptions brainstorm under water, when hot magma is cooled and hardened by the ocean. Over fourth dimension, this activity creates islands with a steep central acme—hence the name "loftier island." Ridges and valleys radiate outward from the meridian toward the coastline.

The isle region of Melanesia contains many high islands because information technology is a major office of the "Ring of Fire," a cord of volcanoes around the boundary of the Pacific Sea. This office of the Ring of Burn down is on the boundary of the Pacific plate and the Australian plate. This is a convergent plate boundary, where the 2 plates motility toward each other. Important volcanic mountains in Melanesia include Mount Tomanivi, Fiji; Mount Lamington, Papua New Republic of guinea; and Mountain Yasur, Vanuatu.

Low Islands

Low islands are besides called coral islands. They are fabricated of the skeletons and living bodies of small marine animals called corals. Sometimes, coral islands barely reach above sea level—hence the name "low isle." Low islands oft have the shape of an irregular ring of very small islands, chosen an atoll, surrounding a lagoon. An atoll forms when a coral reef builds up around a volcanic island, then the volcanic island erodes away, leaving a lagoon. Atolls are defined as 1 island fifty-fifty though they are fabricated upwardly of multiple communities of coral.

The isle regions of Micronesia and Polynesia are dominated by low islands. The Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the marshall islands, for case, is composed of 97 islands and islets that environs one of the largest lagoons in the world, with an area of 2,173 square kilometers (839 square miles). The nation of Kiribati is composed of 32 atolls and one solitary island dispersed over 3.five million foursquare kilometers (1.35 million square miles) of the Pacific Body of water.

Island Flora and Fauna

The evolution of flora and brute beyond the islands of Australia and Oceania is unique. Many plants and animals reached the islands from southern Asia during the last glacial flow, when sea levels were low plenty to permit for travel. Later on bounding main levels rose, species adapted to the environs of each isle or community of islands, producing multiple species that evolved from a common ancestor. Due to its isolation from the rest of the world, Australia and Oceania has an incredibly loftier number of endemic species, or species that are found nowhere else on Earth.

Plants traveled between islands by riding wind or ocean currents. Birds carried the seeds of fruits and plants and spread them between islands with their droppings. Ferns, mosses, and some flowering plants rely on spores or seeds that tin remain airborne for long distances. Coconut palms and mangroves, mutual throughout Australia and Oceania, produce seeds that tin bladder on salty water for weeks at a time. Of import flowering plants native to Australia and Oceania include the jacaranda, hibiscus, pohutukawa, and kowhai. Other indigenous copse include the breadfruit, eucalyptus, and banyan.

Birds are very common in Australia and Oceania because they are 1 of the few animals mobile enough to movement from island to island. There are more than 110 endemic bird species in Australia and Oceania, including many seabirds. Many flightless birds, such as emus, kiwis, cassowaries, wekas, and takahes, are native to Commonwealth of australia, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand. The Pacific Islands have more than 25 species of birds of paradise, which exhibit colorful plumage.

Lizards and bats brand up the bulk of Australia and Oceania's native land animals. Lizard species include the goanna, skink, and disguised dragon. Australia and Oceania has more than than a hundred dissimilar species of fruit bats.

The few native land animals in Commonwealth of australia and Oceania are unusual. Australia and Oceania is the simply place in the world that is home to monotremes—mammals that lay eggs. All monotremes are native to Australia and Papua New Republic of guinea. There are merely v living species: the duckbill platypus and 4 species of echidna.

Many of the nearly familiar animals native to Australia and Oceania are marsupials, including the koala, kangaroo, and wallaby. Marsupials are mammals that carry their newborn immature in a pouch. Almost 70 percent of the marsupials on Earth are native to Oceania. (The rest are native to the Americas.)

In Australia and Oceania, marsupials did not face up threats or contest from large predators such every bit lions, tigers, or bears. The red kangaroo, the world'south largest marsupial, tin can grow upwards to 2 meters (half-dozen feet) tall, and weigh as much as 100 kilograms (220 pounds). In the Americas, marsupials such as possums are much smaller.

Marine Flora and Animal

The marine environment is an of import and influential physical region in Australia and Oceania. The region is composed of three marine realms: Temperate Australasia, Central Indo-Pacific, and Eastern Indo-Pacific. Marine realms are large ocean regions where animal and constitute life are similar considering of shared environmental and evolutionary factors.

The Temperate Australasia realm includes the seas surrounding the southern half of Australia and the islands of New Zealand. This realm is one of the globe's richest areas for seabirds. Its cold, food-rich waters support a variety of plants and fish that seabirds feed on. These seabirds include different species of albatross, petrel, and shearwater, as well as the Australasian gannet and rockhopper penguin.

The Central Indo-Pacific realm includes the seas surrounding the northern half of Australia, Papua New Republic of guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. This marine realm has the greatest variety of tropical coral in the globe and includes the world's 2 largest coral formations: Australia's Bully Bulwark Reef and the New Caledonia Barrier Reef. The Cracking Barrier Reef, a UNESCO World Heritage Site off the coast of northeast Commonwealth of australia, is 344,400 square kilometers (133,000 square miles).

The Great Bulwark Reef and the New Caledonia Bulwark Reef are underwater hotspots for biodiversity. The Peachy Barrier Reef is home to xxx species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises; six species of body of water turtles; 215 species of birds; and more than 1,500 species of fish. The New Caledonia Barrier Reef is domicile to 600 species of sponges, v,500 species of mollusks, 5,000 species of crustaceans, and at least ane,000 species of fish.

The Eastern Indo-Pacific realm surrounds the tropical islands of the central Pacific Body of water, extending from the Marshall Islands through key and southeastern Polynesia. Like the Cardinal Indo-Pacific realm, this realm is also known for its tropical coral formations. A diversity of whale, tortoise, and fish species also inhabit this realm.

Australia and Oceania: Physical Geography

Australia and Oceania is a continent made up of thousands of islands throughout the South Pacific Sea.

Most Renewable Electricity Produced
New Zealand (73%; hydropower, geothermal, wind, biomass)

Population Density
8 people per square kilometer

Largest Watershed
Murray-Darling river system (one million square kilometers/409,835 foursquare miles)

Highest Elevation
Mount Kosciuszko, Australia (2,228 meters/seven,310 anxiety)

Largest Urban Surface area
Sydney, Australia (4 million people)

ancestor

Substantive

organism from whom one is descended.

Noun

a coral reef or string of coral islands that surrounds a lagoon.

Substantive

all the different kinds of living organisms within a given expanse.

Noun

1 of the seven main country masses on Earth.

continental isle

Noun

land once connected to a continent simply broken off by shifting tectonic plates.

convergent plate boundary

Noun

area where 2 or more tectonic plates bump into each other. Also called a collision zone.

Noun

tiny ocean animal, some of which secrete calcium carbonate to course reefs.

coral reef

Substantive

rocky ocean features made up of millions of coral skeletons.

Noun

rocky outermost layer of Earth or other planet.

Noun

steady, predictable flow of fluid within a larger torso of that fluid.

Noun

area of land that receives no more than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of precipitation a year.

Substantive

height to a higher place or below ocean level.

endemic

Describing word

native to a specific geographic space.

environment

Noun

conditions that environs and influence an organism or customs.

Noun

imaginary line around the Globe, another planet, or star running east-due west, 0 degrees breadth.

development

Noun

change in heritable traits of a population over time.

fauna

Noun

animals associated with an area or fourth dimension period.

flora

Substantive

plants associated with an expanse or time period.

Noun

areas of the World's crust that have been aptitude and forced upwardly by movement of tectonic plates.

glacial menstruation

Noun

time of long-term lowering of temperatures on Globe. As well known every bit an ice historic period.

Substantive

mass of ice that moves slowly over land.

loftier island

Noun

an oceanic or volcanic island.

human geography

Noun

the study of the way human communities and systems collaborate with their environment.

Noun

torso of state surrounded by water.

Substantive

shallow body of water that may take an opening to a larger body of water, but is likewise protected from it past a sandbar or coral reef.

Substantive

the geographic features of a region.

low isle

Noun

continental island.

Noun

molten, or partially melted, rock below the World's surface.

marine

Adjective

having to practise with the bounding main.

marine realm

Noun

large ocean region, including its underwater landscape, climate, and organisms.

marsupial

Substantive

mammal that carries its young in a pouch on the mother's body.

microcontinent

Noun

a type of big continental island.

monotreme

Noun

blazon of mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.

mountain range

Substantive

series or chain of mountains that are shut together.

Noun

substance an organism needs for free energy, growth, and life.

Oceania

Substantive

region including island groups in the South Pacific.

Outback

Noun

remote, sparsely populated interior region of Commonwealth of australia.

physical geography

Noun

written report of the natural features and processes of the Globe.

Noun

flat, smooth area at a low elevation.

predator

Noun

animal that hunts other animals for food.

Noun

area of tall, mostly evergreen trees and a high amount of rainfall.

resources

Noun

available supply of materials, goods, or services. Resources can be natural or human.

Noun

horseshoe-shaped string of volcanoes and earthquake sites around edges of the Pacific Ocean.

Substantive

base level for measuring elevations. Sea level is determined by measurements taken over a 19-twelvemonth bicycle.

tectonic activity

Noun

movement of tectonic plates resulting in geologic action such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

tropical

Adjective

existing in the tropics, the latitudes between the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the south.

Noun

the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

unique

Adjective

one of a kind.

valley

Noun

depression in the Earth betwixt hills.

Substantive

an opening in the Earth's chaff, through which lava, ash, and gases erupt, and too the cone built by eruptions.

Noun

a microcontinent that bankrupt off from Australia almost eighty million years ago. Zealandia is most totally underwater.

  • Credits

    Media Credits

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    Writers

    Diane Boudreau
    Melissa McDaniel
    Erin Sprout
    Andrew Turgeon

    Illustrators

    Mary Crooks, National Geographic Society
    Tim Gunther, Illustrator

    Editors

    Jeannie Evers, Emdash Editing
    Kara West

    Educator Reviewer

    Nancy Wynne

    Producer

    Caryl-Sue, National Geographic Social club

    Sources

    Dunn, Margery G. (Editor). (1989, 1993). "Exploring Your Earth: The Adventure of Geography." Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Club.

    Final Updated

    Jan. iv, 2012

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