Oceania Ecozone - Geology

Geology

Oceania, is geologically the youngest ecozone. While other ecozones include old continental land masses or fragments of continents, Oceania is composed mostly of volcanic high islands and Coral atolls that arose from the sea in geologically recent times, many of them in the Pleistocene. They were created either by hotspot volcanism, or as island arcs pushed upward by the collision and subduction of tectonic plates. The islands range from tiny islets, sea stacks and coral atolls to large mountainous islands, like Hawaii and Fiji.