Seamounts and Volcanic Islands

Abstract

During the years of European exploration, volcanic islands were portrayed as the image of the garden of Eden. The French explorer Bougainville even thought he had discovered the fundamentally good individual of Rousseau on Tahiti. The active volcanic Galapagos Islands were the birthplace of one of the most fundamental ideas of the nineteenth century: Darwin’s theory of evolution. Indeed, the fauna of these islands represents the laboratory of life in a nutshell.