Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island in the south-western Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica. It has been governed as a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1880. It became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
Macquarie Island is an exposed portion of the Macquarie Ridge and is located where the Australian plate meets the Pacific plate.
The island is home to the entire royal penguin population during their annual nesting season. Ecologically, the island is part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion.
History 19th century Frederick Hasselborough, an Australian, discovered the uninhabited island on 11 July 1810, while looking for new sealing grounds. He claimed Macquarie Island for Britain and annexed it to the colony of New South Wales in 1810. The island was named for Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. Hasselborough reported a wreck "of ancient design", which has given rise to speculation that the island may have been visited before by Polynesians or others.Macquarie Island: a brief history — Australian Antarctic Division . Antarctica.gov.au. Retrieved on 16 July 2013. In the same year, Captain Smith described in more detail what is presumably the same wreck and incorrectly speculated that it belonged to French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse: "several pieces of wreck of a large vessel on this Island, apparently very old and high up in the grass, probably the remains of the ship of the unfortunate De la Perouse".
Between 1810 and 1919, seals and then penguins were hunted for their oil almost to the point of extinction. Sealers' relics include iron try pots, casks, hut ruins, graves and inscriptions. During that time, 144 vessel visits are recorded, 12 of which ended in shipwreck.R.K. Headland, Historical Antarctic sealing industry, Scott Polar Research Institute (Cambridge University), 2018, p. 167. , p. 167. The conditions on the island and the surrounding seas were considered so harsh that a plan to use it as a penal settlement was rejected.
Richard Siddins and his crew were shipwrecked in Hasselborough Bay on 11 June 1812. Joseph Underwood sent the ship Elizabeth and Mary to the island to rescue the remaining crew. The Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen explored the area for Alexander I of Russia in 1820, and produced the first map of Macquarie Island. Bellingshausen landed on the island on 28 November 1820, defined its geographical position and traded his rum and food for the island's fauna with the sealers.
In 1877, the crew of the schooner Bencleugh was shipwrecked on the island for four months; folklore says they came to believe there was hidden treasure on the island. The ship's owner, John Sen Inches Thomson, wrote a book on his sea travels, including his time on the island. The book, written in 1912, was entitled Voyages and Wanderings In Far-off Seas and Lands.
Tasmania–New Zealand seal skin dispute Macquarie Island was made a constituent part of Tasmania on 17 June 1880 through Letters Patent for the Governor of Tasmania.
In 1890, the Colony of New Zealand wrote to Lord Onslow (the Governor of New Zealand), Philip Fysh (the Premier of Tasmania), and the Lord Knutsford (the Secretary of State for the Colonies) regarding the island, initially requesting permission to annex the island, then requesting its transfer from the Colony of Tasmania, as this would close a loophole in New Zealand's closed sealing season when vessels were poaching on sub-Antarctic islands under the Colony's jurisdiction but claiming they got the seal skins from Macquarie Island. On the recommendation of Fysh, the Tasmanian Legislative Council passed a motion on 24 July 1890 requesting the "necessary steps be taken" for Macquarie Island to be transferred to New Zealand. Fysh was in no hurry to complete this process, and the request was only officially transmitted to the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly on 28 August 1890.
When the Legislative Assembly considered the matter on 2 September 1890, the virtue of transferring a dependent island was questioned, and (after several points of order and jokes from members) the assembly deferred consideration until the following day (effectively denying the transfer). By October 1890, it was certain that Tasmania would not condone the transfer of the island to New Zealand. Sir Harry Atkinson (Premier of New Zealand) expressed his regrets that Tasmania had decided against the transfer, with Fysh noting that all of New Zealand's stated objectives could be achieved under existing Tasmanian legislation and through inter-colonial agreements. In mid October 1890, The Southland Times was reporting that an explanation was forthcoming from Wellington. On 23 October 1890, Fysh formally advised New Zealand of the colonial legislature's refusal to transfer the island, and on 20 November 1890 Knutsford formally advised Onslow that the British government had not consented to any transfer.
On 20 April 1891, regulations issued by the Tasmanian Commissioner of Fisheries for the protection of seals on Macquarie Island came into effect. This was possible under existing Tasmanian legislation, namely the Fisheries Act 1889. By 26 October 1891, these regulations were amended to expire on 20 July 1894, and to no longer include the forfeiture of a vessel as penalty for the offence.
20th century
Between 1902 and 1920, the Tasmanian Government leased the island to Joseph Hatch (1837–1928) for his oil industry based on harvesting penguins.
Between 1911 and 1914, the island became a base for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Sir Douglas Mawson. George Ainsworth operated a meteorological station between 1911 and 1913, followed by Harold Power from 1913 to 1914, and by Arthur Tulloch from 1914 until the station was shut down in 1915.
In 1933, the authorities declared the island a wildlife sanctuary under the Tasmanian Animals and Birds Protection Act 1928 and, in 1972, it was made a State Reserve under the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Act 1970.Parks & Wildlife Service - History of the Reserve . Parks.tas.gov.au (24 June 2013). Retrieved 16 July 2013. On 25 May 1948, the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) established its expedition headquarters on Macquarie Island. In March 1949, they were visited by the Fifth French Antarctic Expedition on their return trip from Adélie Land where any landing was made impossible due to extensive pack ice that year.
The island had status as a biosphere reserve under the Man and the Biosphere Programme from 1977 until its withdrawal from the program in 2011. On 5 December 1997, Macquarie Island was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a site of major geoconservation significance, being the only mid-ocean ridge on Earth where rocks from the Earth's mantle are being actively exposed above sea-level.
21st century
On 23 December 2004, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale rocked the island but caused no significant damage. Geoscience Australia issued a Tsunami Inundation Advice for Macquarie Island Station.Geoscience Australia Professional Opinion. January 2014 The paper indicated that a tsunami caused by a local earthquake could occur with no warning, and could inundate the isthmus and its existing station. Such a tsunami would likely affect other parts of the coastline and field huts located close to the shore. According to several papers, an earthquake capable of causing a tsunami of that significance is a high risk.
In August 2026, the Australian Antarctic Division announced that they would be withdrawing all personnel from the Macquarie Island Station, because the expected arrival of the H5N1 bird flu virus was forecast to lead to mass mortality in the colony of 2,500 elephant seals adjacent to the base. There have been no necropsies on other elephant seal populations to determine if bird flu has caused deaths. The withdrawal of 24 personnel from Macquarie Island was to avoid the predicted psychological effects of living for an extended period within a mass mortality event. The planned rebuild of the $371 million Macquarie station would be delayed.
Geography
Macquarie Island is located south-east of Tasmania, approximately halfway between Tasmania and the Antarctic continent, and south-west of New Zealand's South Island. It has a width of about and a length of about , with an area of approximately . The island is largely composed of plateaus with an elevation of about , surrounded by steep cliffs with slopes typically between 40° and 45°. Parts of the island's coast feature raised beaches and sea stacks, particularly on the north-western side of the island.
The island can be divided into three plateaus. The southern plateau has the highest elevation and features the island's highest point, Mount Hamilton, which has an elevation of . It also contains a lake known as Waterfall Lake. The northern plateau has an elevation of around . The central plateau has a similar elevation and features two large basins: Skua Lake on the western side of the island, and Green Gorge on the eastern side. It also features several lakes, including Flynn Lake, Gratitude Lake, and Tiobunga Lake. On the island's northern side, a narrow isthmus connects Wireless Hill to the island. The island contains a total of 20 named lakes, as well as a small number of lagoons and tarns. The largest lake, Major Lake, has an area of and a maximum depth of . The deepest lake is Prion Lake, with a depth of . Due to the island's strong westerly winds, the lakes on the western side of the island have particularly high concentrations of sea salt compounds.
Two small groups of islands are located nearby: the Judge and Clerk Islands sit north of Macquarie Island, while the Bishop and Clerk Islands are located south of the island.
In the 19th century a phantom island named "Emerald Island" was believed to lie south of Macquarie Island.
Geology
Macquarie Island is part of the Macquarie Ridge complex and lies on the tectonic plate boundary between the Australian plate and the Pacific plate. The rocks on the island were formed through accretion during periods of seafloor spreading on the tectonic ridge. Scientists have identified three distinct blocks of rock that compose the island, which have each seen different patterns and directions of shifting and rotation. The rocks of the island are believed to have formed roughly 27–30 million years ago during the Oligocene epoch. The island also contains a layer of pillow basalts that formed about 10 million years ago. It is believed that the island emerged above sea level about 80,000–300,000 years ago.
Macquarie Island has long been studied by geologists as one of the few ophiolites (exposed sections of oceanic crust) on Earth. The majority of the island's visible landscape is composed of pillow basalt formed by underwater lava flows, which is interspersed by oozes dating to the Pliocene epoch. The northern third of the island includes areas of pendotite, gabbro, and dolerite. Two areas on the eastern side of the island feature dolerite dyke swarms, some of which include areas of exposed gabbro and troctolite.
While the earliest researchers to study Macquarie Island believed that the island's geography had been shaped by thick glaciers present during the most recent glacial maximum, scientists have questioned the historical presence and extent of glaciers on the island. Modern researchers have suggested that tectonic activity, rather than glaciation, has been the dominant factor in shaping the island's geomorphology. The geography of Macquarie Island has been shaped by fault activity, and the island continues to rise at a rate estimated at around per year.