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Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra atoll size= (2 sq mi/5.2 sq km), located in central Pacific, it is a thousand miles south of Hawaii, an untold distance from civilization. Also a circular string of 54 small, heavily vegetated islets formed by the growth of coral on the rim of an ancient submerged volcano. Uninhabited by humans and wild to the core, it is the last intact marine wilderness in the U.S. tropics.
First visited by Americans in 1802, and later claimed by the Hawaiian kingdom (1862) and Great Britain (1889), it was annexed by the United States in 1898. Palmyra was under the jurisdiction of the city and county of Honolulu until Hawaii was granted statehood in 1959. The atoll is now under the control of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior.
Its pristine waters harbor five times as many coral species as the Florida Keys, and its shores offer one of the few nesting areas for seabirds within 450,000 square miles. 29 bird species, the world's largest land invertebrate, 125 species of stony corals, countless varieties of fish, pods of dolphins, endangered Hawaiian monk seals, and more...
Palmyra's islets offer an untouched sanctuary to many rare and endangered species.One of the last surviving stands of Pisonia beach forest in the U.S. Pacific, among other plant species...
At one time, Palmyra was proposed to become a nuclear waste dump.
From its discovery to shipwrecked pirates and murder, the past 200 years has proven to give Palmyra Atoll a colorful history...
