St. Pierre Island
Generally, granite rock results from soliyfied
magma into the lithosphere more than 2 kilometers under the earth's
surface. Via tectonical faults the magma rises to higher layers the
the lithopshere , which is called intrusion. By rising up,
giantic magma-compounds (so called batholiths) of a few 100
kilometers width and length are formed. So how come, that there can
be found solitaire granite rock stuctures on the Seychelles, since
they are not connected to any other country?
600 to 700 million years ago, South America,
Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica consisted of one
super-continent called gondwana on the southern hemisphere of the
earth. 150 million years ago gondwana started to break between
Africa and Madagaskar and the still connected parts of India,
Antarctica, Madagascar and Australia started to drift westwards.
"Shortly" after that, India detachted from Madagascar and drifted
on further up to the North. Madagascar-Seychellen separated from
India approximately 65 – 70 million years ago at the end of the
Cretaceous period. The separation of India-Madagascar-Seychelles is
connected with an eruption of the Deccan-Trapp between 60 and 68
million years ago, which took place at the Reunion-Hotspot right in
the middle of the indian ocean.
There is nice animation at
http://kartoweb.itc.nl. Click on the link to
see the re-attaching parts of gondwana!
The microcontinent of the Seychelles is
desiminated on an area of the size of 400.000 square kilometers and
consistst of 115 islands. 32 of them consist of solid granite rock
from the gondwana-super-continent. The sea has formed this granite
rock during the past.
One of the smaller inner islands is St. Pierre,
which can be found at the given coordinates. The island is part of
the Curieuse Island National Park. There are
several possibilities to get to this small uninhabited island.
Normally boats taxi from Anse Volbert to St. Pierre. The trip takes
about 15 minutes. The entry fee for Curieuse Island National Park
is about 20 € (date 03/25). If you go there by private yacht, please inform
yourself about landing and mooring fees. Once you reached the
island, you can have a nice picknick on it and admire the bizarre
granite rock formation. After that, you should get into your
swimsuit and your snorkeling gear in order to see the fascinating
underwater flora and fauna there. If you are lucky, you can even
see hawksbill-turtles around St. Pierre.
Logging conditions:
In order to log this Earth-Cache you have to fulfill the
following tasks!
- Get to the given coordiantes an check out the island granite
rock formation, that is forming St.Pierre island you find
there!
- Take a picture in front or even on of the rock formation (see
example-picture) and upload it later on
together with your log!
- Climb on the island and estimate the length an the height of
it!
- Get into the water with your snorkeling gear and find out, in
what way the rock formation gains depth into the sea!
Be careful near those rocks, there might
be some currents!!
- Send your answers
via GC.com-PN!! Well give you the
log-permittance a.s.a.p.!
- Enjoy your stay on St. Pierre and have a safe trip back
home!
Sandra & Stephan
Havrix
Sources:
- Wikipedia.org
- Web
Cartography (http://kartoweb.itc.nl)
- Ministry of
Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment of Seychelles (www.macce.gov.sc)