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Tracing the quiet transformation of Surtsey into habitat
It began as an argument between fire and water, witnessed in real time. In November 1963, south of Iceland in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, the North Atlantic heaved, darkened, and broke open. Columns of ash and steam climbed into the winter sky as a submarine eruption forced its way above the surface, building land where there…
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Coral resurgence and legacy debris complicate Jarvis Island recovery
Nothing about this place invites arrival. A low strip of coral and rubble breaks the Pacific almost on the Equator, far south of Hawaii and far from regular sea lanes, without a harbor, without fresh water, without even the dramatic relief that helps many remote islands announce themselves. Jarvis Island is difficult to see, difficult…
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A fragile ecosystem on Moffen Island reveals Arctic resilience
At the far northern rim of the Svalbard archipelago, where charts begin to look spare and the sea behaves like weather more than water, Moffen Island lies as a low ring of sand and shingle beyond 80 degrees north. It is less a dramatic landmass than a pale interruption in the Arctic Ocean: flat, exposed,…
