Ambitle Island

Ambitle forms the larger part of the Feni Islands in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland Province, lying east of New Ireland on the South Bismarck plate. It belongs to the Tabar-Lihir-Tanga-Feni chain, a series of volcanic islands stretching some 250 kilometres northwest to southeast. Ambitle is a stratovolcano that rises about 450 metres and contains a caldera roughly three kilometres wide. Thermal areas lie on its western side, while hydrothermal water also escapes through coral reefs offshore. These vents are notable for extremely high natural arsenic concentrations in their fluids and surrounding sediments.

Radiocarbon dating places the island’s latest known eruption at approximately 350 BCE. The island’s recorded history begins with European voyaging. In March 1643, Abel Tasman’s expedition approached New Ireland and passed south of Ambitle, naming it St. Jan’s Island. Tasman mistakenly believed he was already following the mainland of New Guinea, although the ships were in fact sailing along New Ireland’s eastern coast.

A member of the crew on the Zeehaen drew coastal profiles of Ambitle into the expedition journal. The island’s wooded volcanic silhouette and offshore reefs thus entered European charts through an exploration still uncertain of its geographical position. by the eighteenth century the caldera, hot ground and reef vents make Ambitle an active geological landscape within a long volcanic archipelago.