Ta'ū
- ISS002-E-9891
- 18 July 2001
- 00:01 UTC
The island of Ta'ū is the largest and westernmost of the Manu'a Islands group — a small grouping of islands, comprising Ta'ū, Ofu and Olosega, located at the eastern end of the Samoan archipelago. Ta'ū lies 10 km southeast from the Ofu-Olosega pair and 110 km east from Tutuila. It is the second largest island of American Samoa, with an area of 39 km², and is the fourth largest of the Samoan archipelago.
The island is approximately rectangular in shape, measuring 10 km in length (east to west) and up to 6 km in width at the western and eastern extremities. Ta'ū's form today is the result of the collapse of the Lata shield volcano — the entire island in effect being the remains of the volcano's northern flank, with the large embayment of the southern coast being the remnant of the collapsed caldera. From the southern shore the land rises through a series of flat steps (known as the Liu Bench) to a tall escarpment reaching a height of 931 m at the Lata peak — the highest point of American Samoa — that lies at the eastern end of the Mataalaosagamai Ridge.
Much of the islands coast is cliff lined or composed of steep slopes dropping directly to the sea or to narrow coastal plains. Narrow fringing reefs are present on the east, west and northern coasts.
45 km to the east of Ta'ū lies the Vailulu Seamount — an active volcano that marks the current location of the Samoan hotspot. The seamount rises from depths of around 4,800 m to a height of 590 m beneath the sea surface at the rim of its 2 km wide crater; the crater itself is 400 m deep.
