Laika or ''Laïka'' is a small uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, a part of the
Shepherd Islands
The Shepherd Islands (coordinates ) are a group of islands lying between the larger islands of Epi and Éfaté, in the Shefa province of Vanuatu. The aggregate land area is . They were named by Captain Cook after Anthony Shepherd, a British as ...
archipelago in the
Shefa Province
Shefa is one of the six provinces of Vanuatu, located in the center of the country and including the islands of Epi (island), Epi and Efate and the Shepherd Islands. The province's name is derived from the initial letters of SHepherd and EFAte. It ...
of
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...
.
Geography
Laika is located north of the island of
Tongoa
Tongoa is an inhabited island in Shefa Province of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean.
Geography
Tongoa is the largest island of Shepherd Islands archipelago. The island is heavily vegetated and shows geothermal activity. Tongoa is of recent volcanic ...
and south-east of the islet of
Tefala. Laika and the other islands scattered around Tongoa were once part of a larger land mass, formed by the eruptions of the
Kuwae submarine volcano, which exploded around 1475.
[Chaochao Gao et al]
''"The 1452 or 1453 A.D. Kuwae eruption signal derived from multiple ice core records: Greatest volcanic sulfate event of the past 700 years"''
Journal of Geophysical Research (2006) Laika has an area of about .
References
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Islands of Vanuatu
Shefa Province
Uninhabited islands of Vanuatu