Oceania Vocabulary

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Great Sandy Desert

(Western Australia; 140,000 sq. mi.) Part of the Western Desert, and the ninth largest in the world.

Soloman Islands

.

service sector employs more than_percent of people in Austrailia and New Zealand

70

pidgin language

A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca, used for communications among speakers of two different languages.

Bass Strait

A narrow passage in between Tasmania and Victoria.

Melanesia

A region in Oceania meaning "black islands"

Great Dividing Range

A series of Plateaus and mountain ranges in eastern Australia.

Torres Strait

A strait between north-eastern Australia and southern New Guinea that connects the Coral Sea with the Arafura Sea.

Gulf of Carpentaria

A wide shallow inlet of the Arafura Sea in northern Australia.

Papua New Guinea

An island country in the Southwest Pacific, the eastern half of New Guinea

Where did the earliest settlers of Oceania Come from?

Asia

Murray River

Australia's longest river flowing year-round

Who settelled Oceania?

Britian

Late 1700's

British settlers arrived, bringing sheep and profiting from gold and often forcing Aborigines and Maori from their lands

New South Wales

Colony established on Australia by Captain James Cook of mainly convicts who supported themselves through sheep herding

high islands

Common in Melanesia

Low Islands (Atolls)

Common in Micronesia & Polynesia

Small Islands Economy

Dependant on trade for food and fuel, use canoes to travel between islands

Low Islands (Atolls)

Encircling lagoons, the islands have few barriers and have developed more uniform cultures.

What empires claimed Oceania island before WWII?

Europe and Japan

Penal Colony of Australia

Great Britian sent their prisoners to settle Austrailia

hills and mountains that divide Austrailia

Great Dividing Range.

Mt. Cook

Highest mountains in the southern alps (New Zealand)

Oceania consists of what three island groups?

Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia

began as hunters and gatherers that eventually domesticated root crops, sugarcane, and pigs, and were connected by language

Melanesian

peoples differ greatly, even among people living on the same island

Melanesian

small islands

Micronesia

Micronesia

Migrants from Southeast Asia and Melanesia settled here and it is now densely populated

Early settlers were subsistence farmers

Polynesia

Hawaii belongs to what group of Islands ?

Polynesia

Inhabitants share a similar language and culture.

Polynesia

Samoan Islands are the most densely populated of Islands of this Island group

Polynesia

Maori people

Polynesian people that settled in New Zealand

The Low Islands only water source?

Rain

Darling River

River located in the northern part of New South Wales.

Commonwealth of Australia

Self-governing dominion within the British Empire established in 1901,

Tasman Sea

Tasman Sea

North Island

The Northern Island of New Zealand

deforestation

The removal of trees faster than forests can replace themselves and leads to soil erosion, soil salinity, and greater risks of fires and flooding.

Low Islands (Atolls)

The ring-shaped low islands were formed as coral reefs built up on the rims of submerged volcanoes.

the Outback

The sparsely populated Western Plateau covers nearly two-thirds of the continent and is made up of deserts

UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

Oceania

a large group of islands in the south Pacific including Melanesia and Micronesia and Polynesia (and sometimes Australasia and the Malay Archipelago)

Central Lowlands

a region of arid grasslands and deserts that separates the great dividing range and the western plateau

Great Australian Bight

a wide bay of the Indian Ocean in southern Australia

Aborigines of Australia

arrived by sea as early as 50,000 years ago from Southeast Asia, Australia's earliest inhabitants

Melanesia

black islands"

Clearing land for farming and grazing has caused

deforestation

Great Barrier Reef and other corals reefs

endangered due to toxic waste, as well as tourists, boaters, divers, oil shale mining, and rising water temperatures

high islands

feature mountain ranges divided by valleys and experience earthquakes and volcanoes, Settlement was based on landforms

How were the islands were formed?

from tectonic plates colliding and others by volcanic activity

orographic rainfall

high islands, warm air rises, cools, and condenses

Great Victoria Desert

is a sparsely populated desert area in Western Australia and South Australia.

Montremes

mammals that lay eggs

Polynesia

many islands

Polynesia

one of three regions in Oceania, meaning "many islands"

low islands vegetation

shrubs and grass

Micronesia

small islands

Australia

smallest continent

Great Barrier Reef

the largest coral reef in the world

Great Artesian Basin

the world's largest reserve of underground water; it is under pressure so that water rises to the surface when wells are bored; located in central Australia

About 85 percent of New Zealand's population lives in

urban areas on the coast

Mt. Wilhelm

world's highest island peak


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