Schouten Island
Encyclopedia
Schouten Island is a 28 km2 island in eastern Tasmania
, Australia
. It lies 1.6 kilometres south of Freycinet Peninsula
and is a part of Freycinet National Park
.
tribe of Tasmanian Aborigines
and kitchen middens indicates Indigenous tribes inhabited the island prior to European settlement. In 1642, while surveying the south-west coast of Tasmania, Abel Tasman
named the island after Joost Schouten, a member of the Council of the Dutch East India Company
.
Members of the Baudin
expedition landed on Schouten in 1802. In the early 19th century, sealers
were active in the area and are known to have visited the island. The discovery of coal on the island in 1809 by a sealer, John Stacey led to between 1842 and 1925, several phases of coal
and tin
mining
, where in 1880 a small number of Chinese men worked the ground for tin. Stacey found that 200-300 hectares of land could be suitable for cultivation. Plans to use convict labour to mine coal on the island in the 1840s were never realised. From 1850 Schouten was used for grazing sheep, with grazing leases only expiring in 1969.
. It is surrounded by cliffs, broken by sheltered bays. A north-south fault line exists divides the island where the eastern part of the island is composed of granite
while the western part is dolerite
overlying sedimentary
and supergroup rocks.
forest
on the dolerite soil
s in the west, and by scrubland, heathland
and sedge
land communities on the granitic soils of the east. Areas associated with previous human disturbance, such as clearing
, grazing
and frequent burning, are dominated by grass
es and herbs
.
Little Penguin
s and Short-tailed Shearwater
s breed on the island, along with other bird species such as the Tasmanian Native-hen
. Australian Fur Seals haul out on the eastern side. Reptile
s present include the Tasmanian Tree Skink
, She-oak Skink
, Southern Grass Skink
and Three-lined Skink.
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It lies 1.6 kilometres south of Freycinet Peninsula
Freycinet Peninsula
Freycinet Peninsula is a large peninsula in eastern Tasmania, Australia. It is located north of Schouten Island, at . It is the site of Freycinet National Park....
and is a part of Freycinet National Park
Freycinet National Park
Freycinet is a national park on the east coast of Tasmania, Australia, 125 km northeast of Hobart. It occupies a large part of the Freycinet Peninsula, named after French navigator Louis de Freycinet, and Schouten Island....
.
History
Schouten Island lies within the territory of the Oyster BayGreat Oyster Bay
Great Oyster Bay is a broad and sheltered bay on the east coast of Tasmania, Australia which opens onto the Tasman Sea. The Tasman Highway runs close to the West Coast of the bay with spectacular views of the rugged granite peaks of the Hazards and Schouten Island of the Freycinet Peninsula which...
tribe of Tasmanian Aborigines
Tasmanian Aborigines
The Tasmanian Aborigines were the indigenous people of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Before British colonisation in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Parlevar. A number of historians point to introduced disease as the major cause of the destruction of the full-blooded...
and kitchen middens indicates Indigenous tribes inhabited the island prior to European settlement. In 1642, while surveying the south-west coast of Tasmania, Abel Tasman
Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...
named the island after Joost Schouten, a member of the Council of the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
.
Members of the Baudin
Nicolas Baudin
Nicolas-Thomas Baudin was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer.Baudin was born a commoner in Saint-Martin-de-Ré on the Île de Ré. At the age of fifteen he joined the merchant navy, and at twenty joined the French East India Company...
expedition landed on Schouten in 1802. In the early 19th century, sealers
Seal hunting
Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...
were active in the area and are known to have visited the island. The discovery of coal on the island in 1809 by a sealer, John Stacey led to between 1842 and 1925, several phases of coal
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
and tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
, where in 1880 a small number of Chinese men worked the ground for tin. Stacey found that 200-300 hectares of land could be suitable for cultivation. Plans to use convict labour to mine coal on the island in the 1840s were never realised. From 1850 Schouten was used for grazing sheep, with grazing leases only expiring in 1969.
Topography and geology
Schouten is a rugged island with the highest point, Mount Storey, 400 m aslAbove mean sea level
The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...
. It is surrounded by cliffs, broken by sheltered bays. A north-south fault line exists divides the island where the eastern part of the island is composed of granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
while the western part is dolerite
Diabase
Diabase or dolerite is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. In North American usage, the term diabase refers to the fresh rock, whilst elsewhere the term dolerite is used for the fresh rock and diabase refers to altered material...
overlying sedimentary
Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....
and supergroup rocks.
Flora and fauna
The natural vegetation of the island is dominated by eucalyptEucalypt
Eucalypts are woody plants belonging to three closely related genera:Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora.In 1995 new evidence, largely genetic, indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to the other eucalypts; they were split off into the...
forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
on the dolerite soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
s in the west, and by scrubland, heathland
Heath (habitat)
A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...
and sedge
Sedge
- Plants :* Acorus calamus, sweet flag, a plant in the Acoraceae family* Any of the plants in the family Cyperaceae- Animals :* A collective noun for several species of birds, including bitterns, cranes and herons* Sedge-fly, caddisfly- Other uses :...
land communities on the granitic soils of the east. Areas associated with previous human disturbance, such as clearing
Land clearing in Australia
Land clearing in Australia describes the removal of native vegetation and deforestation and in Australia. Land clearing involves the removal of native vegetation and habitats, including the bulldozing of native bushlands, forests, savannah, woodlands and native grasslands and the draining of...
, grazing
Grazing
Grazing generally describes a type of feeding, in which a herbivore feeds on plants , and also on other multicellular autotrophs...
and frequent burning, are dominated by grass
Grass
Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...
es and herbs
Herbaceous plant
A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...
.
Little Penguin
Little Penguin
The Little Penguin is the smallest species of penguin. The penguin, which usually grows to an average of in height and in length , is found on the coastlines of southern Australia and New Zealand, with possible records from Chile.Apart from Little Penguins, they have several common names...
s and Short-tailed Shearwater
Short-tailed Shearwater
The Short-tailed Shearwater or Slender-billed Shearwater , also called Yolla or Moonbird, and commonly known as the muttonbird in Australia, is the most abundant seabird species in Australian waters, and is one of the few Australian native birds in which the chicks are commercially harvested...
s breed on the island, along with other bird species such as the Tasmanian Native-hen
Tasmanian Native-hen
The Tasmanian Nativehen is a flightless rail and one of twelve species of birds endemic to the Australian island of Tasmania...
. Australian Fur Seals haul out on the eastern side. Reptile
Reptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
s present include the Tasmanian Tree Skink
Tasmanian Tree Skink
The Agile Cool-skink or Tasmanian Tree Skink is a species of skink in the Scincidae family. It is endemic to Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands. It is viviparous, and may be found in a wide variety of habitats, from tall forests to rocky coastlines....
, She-oak Skink
She-oak Skink
The she-oak skink is a large, long-tailed, snake-like skink endemic to Tasmania, Australia. It is viviparous; mating in spring, and giving birth in latest summer....
, Southern Grass Skink
Southern Grass Skink
The Southern Grass Skink is a skink endemic to Australia, where it is found in the south-east of the continent, as well as in Tasmania and the islands of Bass Strait. Although it occurs in a variety of habitats, it is most commonly found in open grassy woodlands.The Southern Grass Skinks gives...
and Three-lined Skink.