{"id":3819,"date":"2026-10-18T12:02:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T06:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=3819"},"modified":"2026-10-18T15:49:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T10:19:59","slug":"macquarie-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/macquarie-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Macquarie \u200cIsland"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Macquarie \u200cIsland Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Australia recently confirmed its first \u200bcase of H5N1 bird \u200bflu on the sub-Antarctic Macquarie \u200c Island, with \u200bthe deadly virus found in the remote territory&#8217;s vulnerable elephant seal population. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Macquarie \u200cIsland<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>subantarctic island <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">located in the <\/span><b>southwestern <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">part of the <\/span><b>Pacific Ocean.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The island is <\/span><b>politically a part of the Australian island<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> state of <\/span><b>Tasmania, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>regionally <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it forms a<\/span><b> part of Oceania. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is geographically positioned about <\/span><b>1,500 km <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to the<\/span><b> southeast of the principal island of Tasmania<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, approximately <\/span><b>midway between<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the island nation of <\/span><b>New Zealand <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the continent of <\/span><b>Antarctica<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1978, Macquarie Island became a part of the Tasmanian State Reserve and was subsequently designated as a <\/span><b>UNESCO World Heritage Site <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in 1997.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It covers an area of 128 sq. km. and measures about 34 km in length and has a maximum width of 5 km.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has <\/span><b>no permanent human population<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but a <\/span><b>meteorologic and geologic research station<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has been <\/span><b>maintained<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on the island since 1948.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a site of major geoconservation significance, being the <\/span><b>only place on earth<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> where <\/span><b>rocks from the earth\u2019s mantle <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(6 km below the ocean floor) are <\/span><b>being actively exposed above sea level.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The island is an <\/span><b>exposed portion <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the <\/span><b>undersea Macquarie Ridge<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, where the <\/span><b>Pacific and Indian-Australian plates meet.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This geological evolution of the island began about 10 million years ago and continues even today with the island being <\/span><b>seismically active.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Macquarie Ridge <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is one of <\/span><b>only 3 such ridges<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that <\/span><b>impede the Antarctic Circumpolar Circulation.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This <\/span><b>results in distinct differences between the west and east sides <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the ridge, which are used in different ways by different species.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a few<\/span><b> small glacial lakes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on the island.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Flora<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Although the <\/span><b>island is treeless<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, there are a variety of native vegetation types, including <\/span><b>grasses and many species of moss.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Fauna<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It serves as a vital breeding ground for <\/span><b>several penguin species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including the <\/span><b>royal penguin, which breeds exclusively on the island<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, along with king, gentoo, and southern rockhopper penguins.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The island is also home to<\/span><b> various fur seal species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, such as the New Zealand fur seal and the southern elephant seal.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>News: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.devdiscourse.com\/article\/international\/3993935-australia-confirms-first-h5n1-bird-flu-case-on-sub-antarctic-macquarie-island\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><b>DEVD<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Macquarie \u200cIsland is a subantarctic island located in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. Read more about Macquarie Island, Location, Geological Significance, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":56867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1823],"class_list":["post-3819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-macquarie-island","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129556,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions\/129556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}