Nuyts Archipelago
group of islands off Southern Australia
The Nuyts Archipelago is an island group in South Australia in the Great Australian Bight, to the south of the town of Ceduna on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula. It consists of mostly granitic islands and reefs that provide breeding sites for Australian sea lions and support colonies of short-tailed shearwater. It also includes the island group known as the Isles of St Francis. All the islands, with the exception of a part of Evans Island, are located within the protected areas of the Nuyts Archipelago Wilderness Protection Area and the Nuyts Archipelago Conservation Park.
Description
Of the roughly 30 islands and reefs in the archipelago, those lying furthest from the coast of the Eyre Peninsula are the Isles of St Francis, after the largest. Most of the islands are formed of calcarenite lying on granite; where the softer calcarenite is close to sea level it has been heavily eroded by wave action.
The area is biologically unique in South Australia due to the influence of the Leeuwin Current, flowing eastwards across the Great Australian Bight and bringing features more typical of western than south-eastern Australia. In and around the archipelago the subtropical Leeuwin Current meets and mixes with the colder waters of the Flinders Current creating a biodiversity hotspot. Examples of the effect of the Leeuwin Current include the presence of plate corals and fish such as the Western Footballer.
History
Prior to the last ice age, approximately 9,800 years ago, the islands formed part of the mainland coastline.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Nuyts Archipelago” is group of islands off Southern Australia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Nuyts, Archipelago and group, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nuyts Archipelago” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.