NASA orbital photo of Malden Island (north at bottom).

Malden Island (4°1′S 154°59′W) is a low, arid, uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean, about 39 km² in area. It is one of the Line Islands belonging to Republic of Kiribati. The island is chiefly notable for its "mysterious" prehistoric ruins (of Polynesian origin), its once-extensive deposits of phosphatic guano (exploited by Australian interests from c. 1860-1927), its use as the site of the first British H-bomb tests (Operation Grapple, 1957), and its importance as a protected area for breeding seabirds. This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... The Line Islands are a group of mostly atolls in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands. ... Rocky landscape with ruins, by Nicolaes Berchem, ca. ... Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the triangle Polynesia (from Greek: πολύς many, νῆσος island) is a large grouping of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. ... The Chincha guano islands in Peru. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... Operation Grapple: Grapple X Valiant XD824 being bombed-up behind canvas screens Operation Grapple was a United Kingdom tri-service exercise leading to the detonation of the first British hydrogen bomb on May 15, 1957. ...

Geography

Malden Island is located 446 km (241 nautical miles) south of the equator, 2840 km (1530 nautical miles) south of Honolulu, Hawaii, and more than 8000 km (4000 nautical miles, 5000 statute miles) west of the coast of South America. The nearest land is uninhabited Starbuck Island, 204 km (110 nmi) to the southwest. The nearest inhabited place is Tongareva (Penhryn Island), 450 km (243 nmi) to the southwest. The nearest airport is on Kiritimati (Christmas Island), 675 km (365 nmi) to the northwest. Other nearby islands (all uninhabited) include Jarvis Island, 690 km (373 nmi) to the northwest, Vostok Island, 713 km (385 nmi) to the south-southeast, and Caroline (Millennium) Island, 850 km (460 nmi) to the southeast. A nautical mile is a unit of length. ... Nickname: Motto: Official website: Location Location of Honolulu within the City & County of Honolulu, Hawaii. ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ... Starbuck Island, also known as Volunteer Island, is an uninhabited coral atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, part of the Southern Line Islands belonging to Kiribati. ... Penrhyn Island (also called Tongareva or Mangarongaro) is the most remote of the Cook Islands in the south Pacific ocean, about 1365 km (850 miles) north-north-east of Rarotonga. ... Vostok Island, also known as Staver Island is an unhabited coral island in the central Pacific Ocean, part of the Line Islands belonging to Kiribati. ... NASA orbital photo of Caroline Island. ...

The island has roughly the shape of an equilateral triangle 8 km on a side, aligned with the southwest side running northwest to southeast. The west and south corners of the triangle are slightly truncated, shortening the north, east and southwest coasts to about 7 km, and adding shorter west and south coasts about 1 to 2 km in length. A large, mostly shallow, irregularly shaped lagoon, containing a number of small islets, fills the east central part of the island. The lagoon is entirely enclosed by land, but only by relatively narrow strips along its north and east sides. Most of the land area of the island lies to the south and west of the lagoon. The total area of the island is about 39.30 km². This mid bay barrier in Narrabeen, a suburb of Sydney (Australia), has blocked what used to be a bay to form a lagoon. ...

The island is very low, no more than 10 m above sea level at its highest point. The highest elevations are found along a rim that closely follows the coastline. The interior forms a depression that is only a few meters above sea level in the western part and is below sea level (filled by the lagoon) in the east central part. Because of this topography, the ocean cannot be seen from much of the interior.

A continuous heavy surf falls all along the coast, forming a narrow white to gray sandy beach. Except on the west coast, where the white sandy beach is more extensive than elsewhere, a strip of dark gray coral rubble, forming a series of low ridges parallel to the coast, lies within the narrow beach, extending inward to the island rim.

History

Malden was discovered on 30 July 1825 (not 29 July, as incorrectly reported in some sources) by Captain George Anson (Lord) Byron (a cousin of the poet). Byron, commanding the British warship HMS Blonde, was returning to London from a special mission to Honolulu to repatriate the remains of the young king and queen of Hawaii, who had died tragically of measles during a visit to Britain. The island was named for Lt. Charles Robert Malden, navigator of the Blonde, who sighted the island and briefly explored it. Andrew Bloxam, naturalist of the Blonde, and James Macrae, a botanist travelling for the Royal Horticultural Society, joined in exploring the island and recorded their observations. July 30 is the 211th day (212th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 154 days remaining. ... 1825 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Lord Byron, English poet George Gordon (Noel) Byron, 6th Baron Byron (January 22, 1788–April 19, 1824) was an Anglo-Scottish poet and leading figure in Romanticism. ... London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Official language(s) Hawaiian and English Capital Honolulu Largest city Honolulu Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 43rd 28,337 km² n/a km 2,450 km 41. ... Charles Robert Malden (August 9, 1797 – May 23, 1855), was a 19th century British naval officer, surveyor and educator. ... The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 as the London Horticultural Society, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert. ...

At the time of its discovery, Malden was found to be unoccupied, but the remains of ruined temples and other structures indicated that the island had at one time been inhabited. At various times these remains have been speculatively attributed to "wrecked seamen", "the buccaneers", "the South American Incas", "early Chinese navigators", etc. In 1924 the Malden ruins were examined by an archaeologist from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, K.P. Emory, who concluded that they were the creation of a small Polynesian population which had resided there for perhaps several generations some centuries earlier. A view of Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas, now an archaeological site. ...

In the first half of the nineteenth century, during the heyday of American whaling in the central Pacific, Malden was visited on a number of occasions by American whalers. The crew of the oceanographic research vessel Princesse Alice, of Albert Grimaldi (later Prince Albert I of Monaco) pose while flensing a catch Whaling is the hunting and killing of whales. ...

Malden was claimed by the U.S. Guano Company under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which authorized citizens to take possession of uninhabited islands under the authority of the United States for the purpose of removing guano, a valuable agricultural fertilizer. Before the American company began operations, however, the island was occupied by an Australian company under British license. This company and its successors exploited the island continuously from the 1860s through 1927. The Guano Islands Act was federal legislation passed by the U.S. Congress on August 18, 1856 enabling citizens of the U.S. to take possession of islands containing guano deposits. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...

In 1956 the United Kingdom selected Malden as the "instrumentation site" for its first series of thermonuclear (H-bomb) weapons tests, based at Kiritimati (Christmas Island). British propagandists insisted that Malden should not be called a "target island". Nevertheless, the bombing target marker was located at the south point of the island and three thermonuclear devices were detonated at high altitude a short distance offshore in 1957.

The United States continued to dispute British sovereignty over Malden until after the independence of Kiribati was granted in July 1979. On 20 September, representatives of the United States and Kiribati met on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilberts group of Kiribati, and signed a treaty of friendship between their two nations (commonly referred to as the Treaty of Tarawa of 1979) by which the United States recognized Kiribati's sovereignty over Malden and thirteen other islands in the Line and Phoenix Islands groups. This treaty entered into force on 23 September 1983. This page refers to the year 1979. ... September 20 is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years). ... Tarawa is an atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, previously the capital of the former British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. ... The Phoenix Islands are a sparsely populated island chain in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. ... September 23 is the 266th day of the year (267th in leap years). ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The main value of the island to Kiribati lies in the resources of the 200 nautical mile (370 km) Exclusive Economic Zone which surrounds it, particularly the rich tuna fisheries. Gypsum deposits on the island itself are extensive, but do not appear to be economically viable under foreseeable market conditions, mainly due to cost of transportation. Some revenue has been realized from ecotourism; the World Discoverer, an adventure cruise ship operated by Society Expeditions, visited the island once or twice annually for several years in the mid-1990s. In international maritime law, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources. ... Species Thunnus alalunga Thunnus albacares Thunnus atlanticus Thunnus maccoyii Thunnus obesus Thunnus orientalis Thunnus thynnus Thunnus tonggol Tuna are several species of ocean-dwelling fish in the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. ... Gypsum is a very soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. // Chemical structure Gypsum from New South Wales, Australia Heating gypsum above approximately 150°C (302°F) partially dehydrates the mineral by driving off exactly 75% of the water contained in its chemical structure. ... Ecotourism essentially means ecological tourism, where ecological has both environmental and social connotations. ... The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, the last decade of the 20th Century. ...

Malden was reserved as a wildlife sanctuary and closed area, officially designated the Malden Island Wildlife Sanctuary, on 29 May 1975, under the 1975 Wildlife Conservation Ordinance. The principal purpose of this reservation was to protect the large breeding populations of seabirds. The sanctuary is administered by the Wildlife Conservation Unit of the Ministry of Line and Phoenix Islands Development, headquartered on Kiritimati. There is no resident staff at Malden, and the occasional visits by foreign yachtsmen and fishermen cannot be monitored from Kiritimati. A fire in 1977 possibly caused by visitors threatened breeding seabirds, and this remains a potential threat, particularly during periods of drought. A nature reserve (natural reserve, nature preserve, natural preserve) is an area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research. ... May 29 is the 149th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (150th in leap years). ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... NASA photograph of Kiritimati Island, taken from the International Space Station. ...

External links

• Malden Atoll from Space