This view captures the eroded, volcanic shoreline of ChichiJima or Chichi Island, an island within the Ogasawara Islands off the southern coast of Japan.
The Ogasawara Islands have previously had other names, most notably the “Bonin Islands”, and I’ll admit that’s the only name I knew them by before finding this photo to share.
These islands are volcanic in origin and form because the Pacific Plate is subducting beneath the Philippine Sea plate. As the Pacific Plate dips into the mantle, it releases fluids like water and carbon dioxide that, when they interact with hot mantle rocks, reduce the melting point and cause the rocks to melt (comparable to how adding salt to H2O ice can make a liquid appear).
These islands are under constant attack from the open Pacific Ocean. The waves of the Pacific crash against their shorelines and eat away at the rocks, forming the bays seen in this photo. The beaches are likely covered with a type of sand common on Pacific Islands – white, carbonate-rich sand grains produced by erosion and grinding of the coral reefs that form off shore.
These islands were declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2011, in part because of their unique biological properties. These islands peaked their heads above the water hundreds of kilometers from the nearest continent and thus the only species present on them are those that could cross the ocean. They’ve been nicknamed the “Galapagos of the Orient” as that same limitation helped produce the varied evolutionary paths in the Galapagos.
Image credit: http://bit.ly/1Or7UJY
Read more: http://bit.ly/1CVlTaF http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/location/regional/tokyo/ogasawarashotou.html http://www.britannica.com/place/Bonin-Islands
