Mehetia (Meetia)
- Landsat 7
- Path 056 Row 054
- 08 February 2001
The island of Meetia (usually referred to as Mehetia, especially in the west) is the most easterly of the Society Islands, being located 110 km east from Tahiti; a farther 266 km to northeast lies the atoll of Anaa in the Tuamotu Archipelago. The island is a stratovlocano formation with an impressive truncated-pyramid shape that rises from great depths to reach a height of 435 m above sea level. Note that in the above image vegetation is falsely coloured red.
A date for the last known eruption of Mehetia is unknown, but bare lava slopes amidst the otherwise thickly vegetated steep terrain of the island suggests that it has been active in recent times (<2,000 years). Its summit contains a small crater measuring 150 m across and reaching a depth of 80 m.
image: millenium coral reefs landsat archive/usf millenium global coral reef mapping project/nasa seawifs/nasa jsc