Places are similar and different: Macquarie Island world heritage area

The Australian continent 
Students:

• investigate Australia’s major natural and human features for example:  (ACHGK014, ACHGK015)
  • description of natural features of Australia eg deserts, rivers, mountains  

Perception and protection of places
Students:

• investigate how the protection of places is influenced by people’s perception of places, for example:  (ACHGK018)
  • description of how and why people perceive places differently 
  • discussion of how people’s perceptions influence the protection of places in Australia eg sacred sites, national parks, world heritage sites

Macquarie Island World Heritage Area
“On 3 December, 1997 Macquarie Island was listed as a World Heritage Area - the second Tasmanian World Heritage Area. Macquarie Island is a site of outstanding geological and natural significance on a world scale.

The island is one of only a very few in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean where fauna in the region can breed. Around 3.5 million seabirds and 80,000 elephant seals arrive on Macquarie Island each year to breed and moult. Fur seals are beginning to re-establish populations on the island after nearly being exterminated in the early 19th century.”  http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=394

“Macquarie Island is the only island in the world composed entirely of oceanic crust and rocks from the mantle, deep below the earth's surface. Macquarie Island provides evidence of the rock types found at great depths in the earth's crust and of plate tectonics and continental drift, the geological processes that have dominated the earth's surface for many millions of years. It is an island of unique natural diversity, a site of major geoconservation significance and one of the truly remarkable places on earth. http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/macquarie-island

Notes on Leslie R. Blake’s Relief Map, 1913
“Relief shown by contours and spot heights. 

Map of the topographic survey which commenced on 22 October 1911, when the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) team of five landed on Macquarie. The main objective being the establishment of a radio station to relay between Antarctica and Australia. Leslie R. Blake was the cartographer and geologist in the team.

Blake's map remained the most accurate survey during the twentieth century, as it rains, snows or hails 308 days a year on the island, precluding remote sensing.

Blake's main contribution to AAE as a geologist and cartographer on leave from the Geological Survey Dept., Brisbane was the topographical survey on foot and by sea, and description of the island's geology. He collected rock specimens, and photographed royal penguins who breed only on Macquarie Island. (A royal penguin egg collected and signed by Blake October 20, 1912 is now in Aberdeen University' Zoology Museum.)

In 1914 Blake returned from Antarctica to carry out geological work in Queensland goldfields, but soon volunteered as a gunner, later a sergeant, lieutenant, and captain. He died in action on the Somme four weeks before the end of the war. Contours at 50 feet north of Lake Prion; bathymetric contours and soundings from Judge and Clerk Islands to South East Reef.”