Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau is located in which one of the following oceanic regions?

Correct — C, Southern Indian Ocean. The Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau is a broad submarine rise in the southern Indian Ocean, and the two specks of land that break its surface give it its name: Île Amsterdam at roughly 38 degrees south and 77 degrees east, and Île Saint-Paul about ninety kilometres to its south. Both belong to France, as part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, and together they form one of that territory's five districts. Their isolation is the fact worth carrying: Île Amsterdam sits about equally far from Madagascar, from Australia and from Antarctica, some three thousand two hundred kilometres from each, which makes it one of the remotest inhabited places on Earth — the research station at Martin-de-Viviès holds a few dozen people, and Île Saint-Paul is uninhabited. Geologically the plateau is a volcanic construction sitting astride the Southeast Indian Ridge, the spreading boundary that separates the Antarctic Plate from the Australian Plate across the southern Indian Ocean — which is why one standard account calls Île Amsterdam the northernmost volcanic island of the Antarctic Plate while another places the island district at the south-western end of the Australian Plate. The islands lie about 1,325 kilometres north-north-east of the Kerguelen Islands, which are the better-known French possession in these waters and a useful anchor for the whole region.

• (a)Arctic Ocean — The wrong hemisphere altogether. Île Amsterdam and Île Saint-Paul lie near 38 degrees south, in the belt of the roaring forties, not in the Arctic.
• (b)North Atlantic Ocean — The plateau is nowhere near the Atlantic. The remote North Atlantic rises that get confused with it are the Azores and Bermuda platforms, which sit on the other side of Africa and in the other hemisphere.
• (d)South Pacific Ocean — The likeliest slip, because the southern high latitudes blur together. The plateau's longitude, about 77 degrees east, is south of the Bay of Bengal, and the Pacific does not begin until well east of Australia.

The floor of the southern Indian Ocean is broken by several large volcanic plateaus rising thousands of metres above the abyssal plain, most of them built by long-lived hot spots and later split by the spreading ridges that grew through them. The Kerguelen Plateau is the largest; the Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau, near the Southeast Indian Ridge, is a smaller one, and its two emergent islands, Île Amsterdam and Île Saint-Paul, are the tips of volcanoes standing on it. Île Amsterdam covers about 57 square kilometres and reaches 867 metres at the Mont de la Dives; Île Saint-Paul is smaller at about 8 square kilometres, uninhabited, and famous for its flooded crater open to the sea. Both are part of the French Austral Lands and Seas inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2019.

Locating a named submarine or island feature is a matter of holding a mental map of ocean-basin landmarks rather than of recalling a single sentence, and the ocean of these particular names is not obvious — 'Amsterdam' and 'St. Paul' both sound European or Atlantic. The clue is the company they keep. France's holdings in the far south, the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, are all in the southern Indian Ocean: Kerguelen, Crozet, and the Saint Paul and Amsterdam district, together with Adélie Land in Antarctica. Fix that group and the plateau follows. A second anchor is latitude: the islands sit in the westerly wind belt of the forties, which is why the region's other landmarks are also the storm-swept subantarctic islands rather than tropical atolls. Note that there is an unrelated Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea and a Saint Paul's Rocks in the equatorial Atlantic; the French one is the island of this plateau.

• The Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau lies in the southern Indian Ocean, close to the Southeast Indian Ridge.
• It carries Île Amsterdam, at about 37 degrees 50 minutes south and 77 degrees 33 minutes east, and Île Saint-Paul about 90 kilometres to its south.
• Both islands belong to the French Southern and Antarctic Lands and together form one of that territory's five districts.
• Île Amsterdam is about equidistant from Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica, roughly 3,200 kilometres from each, and about 1,325 kilometres from the Kerguelen Islands.
• Île Amsterdam has a research station, Martin-de-Viviès, with a few dozen people; Île Saint-Paul is uninhabited.

• Reading the Dutch and Christian names as a sign of an Atlantic location. The islands were named by European navigators far from Europe.
• Confusing Île Saint-Paul with Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea or with Saint Paul's Rocks in the equatorial Atlantic.
• Placing anything at 38 degrees south in the Pacific by default. Longitude 77 degrees east puts this plateau squarely in the Indian Ocean.

As a locate-the-feature item on an island group, plateau, ridge or strait, usually with the four ocean basins as options.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Île Amsterdam and Île Saint-Paul, which rise from the Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau, are administered by which one of the following countries?

  • (a)Australia
  • (b)France
  • (c)South Africa
  • (d)Norway

  Answer(b) France — they form one of the five districts of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, alongside Kerguelen, Crozet and Adélie Land.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Kerguelen Plateau, one of the largest submarine plateaus in the world, lies in which one of the following oceans?

  • (a)North Pacific Ocean
  • (b)South Atlantic Ocean
  • (c)Southern Indian Ocean
  • (d)Arctic Ocean

  Answer(c) Southern Indian Ocean — the same stretch of ocean floor that carries the smaller Amsterdam-St. Paul Plateau to its north.