The Solander Islands / Hautere are three eroded remnant

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

islets towards the western entrance of the

Foveaux Strait Foveaux Strait ( ; ) is a strait that separates Stewart Island from the South Island of New Zealand. The width of the strait ranges from about , and the depth varies between . The strait was first charted by an American Seal hunting, sealer, O ...

just beyond New Zealand's South Island. The islands lie south of the coastline of

Fiordland Fiordland (, "The Pit of Tattooing", and also translated as "the Shadowlands"), is a non-administrative geographical region of New Zealand in the south-western corner of the South Island, comprising the western third of Southland. Most of F ...

. The islands are

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

rocks with the tip being a larger submerged

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a typically conical volcano built up by many alternating layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with ...

, roughly equivalent in size to Mount Taranaki. It was formerly believed that the volcano last erupted roughly 2 million years ago, but in 2008

radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to Chronological dating, date materials such as Rock (geology), rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurity, impurities were selectively incorporat ...

of rock samples from the main island found that it was between 150,000 and 400,000 years old. In 2013 it was discovered that Little Solander Island had been active even more recently at between 20 and 50,000 years ago. Administratively, the islands form part of

Southland District Southland District is a New Zealand Districts of New Zealand, territorial authority district that covers most of the southern end of the South Island as well as Stewart Island. History Southland District was formed through the 1989 local govern ...

, making them the only uninhabited outlying island group of New Zealand to be part of a local authority.

Islands

Solander Island / Hautere (also known in Māori as ''Te Niho a Kewa''), the main island, covers around , rising steeply to a peak above sea level. It is wooded except for its northeast end, mainly a bare, white rock. A deep cave is on the east side, Sealers Cave. Little Solander Island is west. It reaches high yet covers . It has a barren appearance and is

guano Guano (Spanish from ) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. Guano is a highly effective fertiliser due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Guano was also, to a le ...

-covered. Pierced Rock is south of the main island. It rises to and covers (0.2 ha). Administratively, the islands form part of

, making them the only uninhabited outlying island group of New Zealand to be part of a local authority.

History

The Māori name for the summit of Solander Island is ''Pukekohu'', and the side of the summit is known in Māori as ''Pukepari''. "Hautere" is the father of ''Moko'', a

Ngāti Kurī Ngāti Kurī is a Māori people, Māori iwi from Northland Region, Northland, New Zealand. The iwi is one of the five Muriwhenua iwi of the far north of the North Island. Ngāti Kurī trace their whakapapa (ancestry) back to Pōhurihanga, the ca ...

chief, who notably murdered a

Kāti Māmoe Kāti Māmoe (also spelled Ngāti Māmoe) is a Māori iwi. Originally from the Heretaunga Plains of New Zealand's Hawke's Bay, they moved in the 16th century to the South Island which at the time was already occupied by the Waitaha. A centu ...

chief called ''Tūtewaimate''. The island chain was sighted by Captain

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

on 11 March 1770 and named by him after the Swedish naturalist

Daniel Solander Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander (19 February 1733 – 13 May 1782) was a Sweden, Swedish naturalist and an Apostles of Linnaeus, apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Solander was the first university-educated scientist to set foot o ...

, one of the scientific crew aboard Cook's ship, '' Endeavour''. The islands are geographically forbidding and weather conditions often confound the approach of ships, dissuading attempts at permanent habitation. Australian sealers briefly made use of the islands during the early 19th century, likely living on small flats between the island's cliffs and its shoreline for stints of a few months. Castaways would occasionally end up on the islands, and in 1813, a passing ship bound for Stewart Island found five men in need of rescue. The men – four Europeans and one Australian Aboriginal – were marooned there between 1808 and 1813, representing the longest continuous period of habitation on the islands. They are thought to have been left ashore in two groups for seal hunting (sealing), but the sea prevented the approach of any ship to recover them. In 1810, sealing moved to

Macquarie Island Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island in the south-western Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. It has been governed as a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1880. It became a Protected areas of Tasmania, Tasmania ...

, farther to the west, and they were effectively abandoned. When rediscovered in 1813, it is likely that they had amassed many dried seal pelts.

Geology

The islands are remnants of an isolated extinct trachyandesite and

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

volcano whose volcanics have geochemical affinities with modern adakites. The andestic dome of Little Solander Island was active between 20 and 50,000 years ago. The age of the main island is 150 to 400 thousand years old, backed up by pollen data, with in one set of analysis the eruptives having a mean age of 344 ± 10 ka and another mean age of 247 ± 8 ka. The islands lie on a bank with depths less than , separated from the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

along Foveaux Strait by a but narrow trough deep (at least ). Therefore, the islands are included in the New Zealand Outlying Islands. The islands are the only volcanic land in New Zealand recently related to the subduction of the

Australian Plate The Australian plate is or was a major tectonic plate in the eastern and, largely, southern hemispheres. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, Australia remained connected to India and Antarctica until approximately when Indi ...

beneath the Pacific Plate along the Puysegur Trench, which extends southwards from the end of the Alpine Fault. The current estimated rate of subduction is 35–36 mm per year. The Solander Basin

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

continental basement rock consists of

diorite Diorite ( ) is an intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is Intermediate composition, inter ...

and subordinate

gabbro Gabbro ( ) is a phaneritic (coarse-grained and magnesium- and iron-rich), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is ch ...

overlaid by

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58 This is isotopically distinct continental crust from the Solander Islands, excluding partial melting of the lower crust as creating the volcanic magma. It has been suggested that the melt that formed the islands comes from a peridotitic source enriched by the addition of a slab-derived melt with subsequent open-system

fractionation Fractionation is a separation process in which a certain quantity of a mixture (of gasses, solids, liquids, enzymes, or isotopes, or a suspension) is divided during a phase transition, into a number of smaller quantities (fractions) in which t ...

, resulted in the evolved andesitic adakites.

Flora and fauna

There are 53 vascular plant species, one third of which are very rare. The flora is dominated by

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

s and

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...

s. The southern, and nominate,

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of Buller's albatross (''Thalassarche b. bulleri'') breeds only on the Solanders and the Snares. The Solander Islands were historically a well-known area for migrating whales, especially southern right and

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the Genus (biology), genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the s ...

s. Sperm whales in this area were said to be exceptionally large.

Bird life

The islands are home to a variety of bird life. The Solander group has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because of its significance as a breeding site for Buller's albatrosses (with about 5000 pairs) and

common diving petrel The common diving petrel (''Pelecanoides urinatrix''), also known as the smaller diving petrel or simply the diving petrel, is a diving petrel, one of four very similar auk-like small petrels of the southern oceans. It is native to South Atlanti ...

s.BirdLife International. (2012). Important Bird Areas factsheet: Solander Islands. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 27 January 2012.

References

External links

Geology

Botany

Fauna (Albatrosses)

Nautical information

photo
{{Authority control Islands of the Southland Region New Zealand outlying islands Volcanoes of the New Zealand outlying islands Pleistocene volcanoes Extinct volcanoes Important Bird Areas of New Zealand Volcanic islands of New Zealand Uninhabited islands of New Zealand Foveaux Strait Islands of the New Zealand outlying islands Stratovolcanoes of New Zealand