ÃŽles Maria
Template: Infobox Atoll / Maintenance / height Missing
The atoll Maria (French: Îles Maria or Maria Ilots ), also known as Hull Iceland or Nororotu, is a group of four uninhabited islands, precisely one of the Austral Islands Tubuai to the group of islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are the farthest west and northern Austral Group.
Geography
Maria is a very advanced in its development Atoll, the geologically oldest of the Tubuai group whose central volcanic island has sunk a long time ago. Only four of the fringing reef seated Motus are left. The reef is surrounded by an annular lagoon is already largely silted up.
The individual islands are named after their location in Atoll:
Île du Nordet, the largest of the four, only measures 2 × 1 km. All the islands are composed of coral sand and rubble - and 'just above the sea beyond. You have a land area of 1.3 km ² together.
Vegetation
The botanist Raimond Fosberg of the University of Hawaii visited Mary in 1934 and found an undisturbed habitat. An aerial image review of botanists from Victoria University in 1960 seems to confirm this condition. Since then, no scientific studies of the fauna and flora have been more made as to whether the pristine condition still exists, is not known.
All four islands of the atoll is covered by dense tropical forest, mainly from Pisonia grandis, heliotrope Heliotropium foertherianum the type (synonyms: Argusia argentea, Tournefortia argentea ) composed and Pandanus tectorius. At the margins of bushes of Scaevola taccada grow.
History
Because there is no fresh water, Mary was probably never inhabited permanently. A traditional legends collection of Rurutu, transmit end of the 19th century, in written form, tells of the journey of the king's son Amaiterai, a mythical hero of the island. He is sent by his father to the " end of the world " in order to attain divine wisdom. On the way back across New Zealand and the Cook Islands, he also touches on the atoll Mary, where he founded a Marae, until finally on Rurutu fulfilled his mission, and he takes over the reigns of his father. The veracity of this legend has not yet been verified archaeologically. The New Zealand anthropologist Peter Buck excludes the traditions that Mary could have served as a landmark and a stopover on the trade missions of the early Polynesians between the more southerly inhabited Australasia and the Cook Islands.
The atoll is named after the whaling ship from Nantucket Maria, the Captain George Washington Gardner (* 1778, † 1838) discovered it in 1824. John R. Sands, captain of the whaling barque Benjamin Tucker of New Bedford (Massachusetts), christened the islands on October 19, 1845 " Sands Islands " because he considered himself the first discoverer.
The island belonged to Maria - to 1889 independent - Kingdom Rimatara, the IV under Köninigin Tamaeva placed himself under the protectorate of France only on 29 March 1889. The endgültigte annexation took place in 1900, along with Rimatara Maria became a French colony.
Politics and Administration
The uninhabited islands are administered by the borough ( commune associée ) Mutuarau the community Rimatara (Commune de Rimatara ) and belong politically to French Polynesia.