Wake Island (Atoll)
- ISS001-E-6511
- 09 March 2001
- 04:15 UTC
Wake Atoll is a small atoll of the western Central Pacific, situated over 3,600 km west of Honolulu. Geographically the atoll is the northernmost of the Marshall Islands group of atolls, where it is named Eneen-Kio. Kwajalein (the largest atoll of the Marshall Islands) is located around 1,100 km to the south. Geologically the atoll is the only emergent part of the submarine Mid-Pacific Mountains — a chain of undersea mountains that runs westwards from Hawaii for over 4,000 km.
The atoll is 8 km in length and 4.3 km in width, covering and area of 22 km². Three islands give the atoll a land area of 6.5 km². The three islands — Wake, Wilkes and Peale — form a broad V-shaped perimeter to the atoll, enclosing a shallow lagoon, leaving the northeast side open. The smaller Wilkes and Peale islands are located of the arms of the larger V-shaped Wake Island.
The reef platform varies in width from less than a 100 m in the southeast to over 600 m in the northwest. The lagoon is shallow with depths ranging from less than 1 m to around 5 m being common. Much of the eastern end of the lagoon is a sand flat at low tide, even though the tidal range is low. The total area of the lagoon is about 12.9 km², of which much is sand flats at low tide. The deepest water in the lagoon is found in the northwesterly end where there is an area of around 1.4 by 1.8 km within which depths ranging from 3.5 to 5 m are found.
Wake Island as the largest of the three islands. Its ocean shore is sharply delineated by a sandy beach at the southern arm and coral rubble lined shore in the west and north, the sides exposed to winds and swell. The lagoon shore, however, is irregularly shaped, with numerous small peninsulas and capes. In addition, there are several small islets, which are barely above water level. The entire lagoon shore of Wake Island gradually drops to inter-tidal sand flats. The reef platform at the ocean side of Wake Island is very narrow in the south and gradually widening towards the north. The northwestern shore is fringed by a wide coral reef platform.
There are three vegetation types: a Tournefortia scrub forest with Cordia and Pisonia, a Lepturus grass cover with Tribulus cistoides and Portulaca lutea, and Pemphis scrub margins on the lagoon side of the atoll.
image: earth sciences and image analysis laboratory, nasa johnson space center
