Australia - Physical map
Physical map
978-3-14-100890-6 | Page 162 | Ill. 1
Overview
Southeast Asia includes several countries on the Asian mainland, adjoined by the island world of the Malay Archipelago. Further out in the Pacific Ocean are smaller volcanic islands or atolls that are already counted as part of Oceania.
Pacific Ocean
Only a small part of the Pacific Ocean lies in Southeast Asia.
The largest part of the Pacific Ocean is more than 4,000 metres deep in the narrow, elongated deep-sea trenches and can even reach up to 11,034 metres (in the Mariana Trench: Witja Deep). The deep-sea trenches mark plate boundaries (e.g., Pacific Plate, Philippine Plate). Numerous active volcanoes and frequent earth and seaquakes are an expression of the tectonic activities in shifts (North America), collisions (New Guinea) and diving occurrences (Peru-Chile trench) of adjacent plates.
The South Pacific is divided by the east-central ridge marking of the Chilean ridge and the Cocos ridge (Galapagos Islands), the boundaries of the Cocos and Nazca Plates. Between the East Pacific Rise, and the Tonga Trench, are a small number of islands.
The North Pacific is divided into several sub-basins by island ridges. A central ridge, like in other oceans, does not exist here, thus no new crust is created. The Pacific Ocean is regarded as a shrinking ocean in geological time.
New Zealand
New Zealand lies east of Australia, across the Tasmanian Sea, and consists of two main islands as well as more than 700 smaller ones. In total, the country covers an area of around 260,000 square kilometres. The mountainous topography, including the Southern Alps, is due to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruption.
Australia
With a 7.7 million square kilometre of land area, Australia is the smallest continent on earth. Australia is geologically old and very stable, as there is no tectonic activity which could compare with those of Southeast Asia or Oceania. The natural flora and fauna consist of many endemic species due to isolation.
Oceania
Oceania covers a land area of 1.3 million square kilometres, most of the small islands are scattered over a sea area of 70 million square kilometres. The richness of the Pacific islands is unique compared to other oceans. New Zealand and New Guinea are geologically young, relatively large, and partly mountainous islands, passing through the plate boundaries. Respectively, there is an intense tectonic phenomenon. With the numerous small islands, these are mostly and volcanic islands. Only about one third of these islands are inhabited.
