Pukapuka
- ISS004-E-8846
- 23 January 2002
- 17:46 UTC
The most isolated of all the atolls and islands that compise the Tuamotu Archipelago, Pukapuka lies remotely in the northeastern regions of the archipelago situated 260 km southeast from Napuka and 183 km northeast from Fakahina. The atoll is one of the Îles du Desappointement — a grouping that also includes Napuka and Tepoto Sud.
The atoll of Pukupuka is the reef-topped summit of a seamount that lies towards the western end of the Pukapuka ridge — a narrow series of overlapping volcanic ridges that extends from the northern reaches of the Tuamotu Archipelago to the East Pacific Rise, some 2,600 km distant in the east. Pukapuka is the only emergent feature of the ridge.
Pukapuka measures 5.7 km in length and up to 3 km in width, with a land area of 4 km². Its central lagoon is extremely shallow and is slowly filling up with sediment.
image: earth sciences and image analysis laboratory, nasa johnson space center