Tofua is a volcanic island in

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

. Located in the

Haʻapai Haʻapai is a group of islands, islets, reefs, and shoals in the central part of Tonga. It has a combined land area of . The Tongatapu island group lies to its south, and the Vavaʻu group lies to its north. Seventeen of the Haʻapai islands are ...

island group, it is a steep-sided composite cone with a summit

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

. It is part of the highly active Kermadec-Tonga subduction zone and its associated

volcanic arc A volcanic arc (also known as a magmatic arc) is a belt of volcanoes formed above a subducting oceanic tectonic plate, with the belt arranged in an arc shape as seen from above. Volcanic arcs typically parallel an oceanic trench, with the arc ...

, which extends from

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

north-northeast to

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

, and is formed by the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Indo-Australian Plate. It lies about above a very active

seismic zone In seismology, a seismic zone or seismic belt is an area of seismicity potentially sharing a common cause. It can be referred to as an earthquake belt as well. It may also be a region on a map for which a common areal rate of seismicity is assume ...

.Ewart, A.; Bryan, W.B.; and Gill, J.B. "Mineralogy and Geochemistry of the Younger Volcanic Islands of Tonga, S.W. Pacific." ''Journal of Petrology.'' 14:3 (1973). It is connected to the nearby island of Kao by a submarine ridge. The island is a national park.

Geography and geology

The island is oval, measuring approximately 80 square kilometers. Its sides rise steeply to the rim of the caldera, which is partially filled by a

volcanic crater lake A volcanic crater lake is a lake in a volcanic crater, crater that was formed by explosive eruption, explosive activity or a caldera, collapse during a types of volcanic eruptions, volcanic eruption. Formation Lakes in calderas fill large crate ...

with a depth of . The caldera was formed by a major eruption around 1,000 years BP, which left deposits up to thick on islands over away. Tofua's pre-caldera activity is recorded by a sequence of pyroclastic deposits and

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a Natural satellite, moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a Fissure vent, fractu ...

s constituting the older cone, followed on the northern part of the island by froth lavas or welded and unwelded

ignimbrite Ignimbrite is a type of volcanic rock, consisting of hardened tuff. Ignimbrites form from the deposits of pyroclastic flows, which are a hot suspension of particles and gases flowing rapidly from a volcano, driven by being denser than the surrou ...

. Following the caldera collapse, lavas were erupted from the northern part of the island and the caldera-rim fissure zone,

scoria Scoria or cinder is a pyroclastic, highly vesicular, dark-colored volcanic rock formed by ejection from a volcano as a molten blob and cooled in the air to form discrete grains called clasts.Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. Jackso ...

and lavas from the caldera-wall fissure zones, pyroclastics and lavas from intracaldera cones, and recent pyroclastic fall deposits on the outer cone. Eruptive products are mainly basaltic

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 ...

s and andesites, plus occasional

dacite Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. ...

flows within the older cone. A postcaldera cone with fumarolic activity (Lofia) is in the northern part of the caldera Most historical eruptions have been small explosions from Lofia cone along the northern caldera rim. The eruptions of 1958–59 caused most of the islanders to evacuate for a year or more.

History

In 1774

Captain Cook 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 1768 and 1779. He complet ...

sailed between Tofua and Kao, but did not land. He observed smoke rising from the island, and that " hebrow of the Hill had been consumed by fire". The Mutiny on the ''Bounty'' took place on 28 April 1789, about from Tofua. After being cast off the ship, Captain

William Bligh William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was a Vice-admiral (Royal Navy), Royal Navy vice-admiral and colonial administrator who served as the governor of New South Wales from 1806 to 1808. He is best known for his role in the Muti ...

navigated the overcrowded open launch on an epic 41-day voyage first to Tofua and then to the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

port of

Kupang Kupang (, ), formerly known as Koepang, is the capital of the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. At the 2020 Indonesian census, 2020 Census, it had a population of 442,758;Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2021. the official estimate as o ...

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

equipped with a quadrant, a

pocket watch A pocket watch is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popula ...

sextant A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of cel ...

and a compass. The mutineers refused them charts so Bligh had to navigate to Timor from memory. He recorded the distance as . He passed through the difficult

Torres Strait The Torres Strait (), also known as Zenadh Kes ( Kalaw Lagaw Ya#Phonology 2, �zen̪ad̪ kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, ...

along the way and reached Kupang on June 14. The only casualty on this voyage was a crewman named John Norton who was stoned to death by the natives of Tofua, the first island they tried to land on. At Tofua (Bligh spelled it ''Tofoa''), Bligh and eighteen loyalists sought refuge in a cave to augment their meager provisions. In the March 1968 issue of the ''

National Geographic Magazine ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

'', Luis Marden claimed to have found this cave and the grave of John Norton. Both findings were later disproved by Bengt Danielsson (who had been a member of the 1947 '' Kon-Tiki'' expedition) in the June 1985 issue of the '' Pacific Islands Monthly''. Danielsson identified Bligh's cave as lying on the sheltered northwest coast, where Bligh identified it; Marden's cave lies on the exposed southeast coast. Additionally, Danielsson thought it highly unlikely that the Tofuans would have allotted any grave site to Norton, or that the grave, if allotted, would have been preserved for two centuries. In May 1943, a lifeboat containing 23 survivors from the

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a ship class, class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost cons ...

SS ''Phoebe A. Hearst'', which sank after being torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I19 on 30 April 1943, landed. The crew survived on shellfish and coconuts until spotted by a

Lockheed Hudson The Lockheed Hudson is a light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built by the American Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. It was initially put into service by the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and ...

patrol aircraft of the

Royal New Zealand Air Force The Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF; ) is the aerial warfare, aerial military service, service branch of the New Zealand Defence Force. It was formed initially in 1923 as a branch of the New Zealand Army, being known as the New Zealand Perm ...

and were picked up the following day by the US Navy ''YMS-89'' and taken to

Tongatapu Tongatapu is the main island of Tonga and the site of its capital, Nukuʻalofa, Nukualofa. It is located in Tonga's southern island group, to which it gives its name, and is the country's most populous island, with 74,611 residents (2016), 70.5% o ...

. Tofua is no longer inhabited, but it is used for agriculture, specifically for the cultivation of

Kava Kava or kava kava (''Piper methysticum'': Latin 'pepper' and Latinized Ancient Greek, Greek 'intoxicating') is a plant in the Piperaceae, pepper family, native to the Pacific Islands. The name ''kava'' is from Tongan language, Tongan and Marqu ...

. The few people who occasionally stay on the island for this purpose use the huts of the abandoned village of Manaka on the east coast of the island as accommodation. Other settlements on the island were Hotaʻane in the west and Hokula in the north. In the 1996 census, five people were still counted, but since 2006, the island has been considered uninhabited. In 2008–2009, the Swiss adventurer Xavier Rosset spent 10 months alone on the island. Having a camera, he turned his survivalist endeavor into a documentary called ''300 Days Alone''.

The oral tradition of Kao and Tofua

E. W. Gifford, recording Tongan myths and tales in the 1920s, documented this explanation for Tofua's caldera and the creation of Kao Island to the north:

Three deities from Samoa, Tuvuvata, Sisi, and Faingaa, conspired to steal Tofua. So they came and tore up the high mountain by its very roots and its place was taken by a large lake. This enraged the Tongan gods very much and one of them, Tafakula, essayed to stop the thieves. He stood on the island of Luahako and bent over so as to show his anus. It shone so brilliantly that the Samoan deities were struck with fear, thinking that the sun was rising and that their dastardly works was about to be revealed. Hence, they dropped the mountain and fled to Samoa. The mountain became the island of Kao.Edward Winslow Gifford (1924), ''Tongan myths and tales'', Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin, No. 8

Ecology

The island is the largest area of undisturbed Tongan tropical moist forests in Tonga, and was designated a national park in 2001. It has been designated 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 ...

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 ...

. Birds include the Many-colored fruit dove, Crimson-crowned fruit dove, Blue-crowned lorikeet,

Polynesian wattled honeyeater The Polynesian wattled honeyeater (''Foulehaio carunculatus'') or the eastern wattled honeyeater, is a species of bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. It was considered conspecific with the Fiji wattled honeyeater and the kikau. The spe ...

, Polynesian triller, Fiji shrikebill, and

Polynesian starling The Polynesian starling (''Aplonis tabuensis'') is a species of starling of the family Sturnidae. It is found in the Samoan Islands, Fiji, Niue, Tonga, the Santa Cruz Islands and Wallis and Futuna. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tro ...

References

External links