Near Oceania and Remote Oceania

Near Oceania and Remote Oceania are the parts of Oceania that are distinct based on geology, flora, fauna, and prehistoric human settlement. The distinction between the two was first suggested by Pawley & Green (1973) and was further elaborated on in Green (1991).

Near Oceania includes the Bismarck Archipelago, the island of New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands archipelago, with Australia also occasionally included. It features greater biodiversity, due to the islands and atolls being closer to each other. Remote Oceania, which is more widely spread out across the Pacific Ocean, includes the rest of Melanesia (the Santa Cruz Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia) and the islands of Polynesia and Micronesia.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.