Sarigan

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Northern Mariana Islands-CIA WFB Map.png

Sarigan is a small island in the Northern Mariana Island chain. It is the result of a Holocene Era stratovolcano with no known historic eruptions, although a swarm of volcano-tectonic earthquakes took place here in the summer of 2005.

The island is located 95 miles (153 km) north of Saipan and has a land area of 4.966 km² (1.92 sq mi). Politically it is a part of the Northern Islands Municipality. It was formerly inhabited, but as of the 2000 census had no population. Landing on Sarigan is difficult due to perpendicular cliffs surrounding the island. It has many ravines and valleys with dense tropical vegetation.

From 1900 until 1945, Sarigan had a Chamorro population that worked on copra production. Today, the island is a nature preserve, and in the mid-1990s, a project was launched to rid Sarigan of its population of feral animals; today, only a few cats remain. Sarigan has been proposed as a site for relocation of endangered birds from Guam and Saipan.

On May 28, 2010 a submarine volcano 7 miles to the south erupted a brief cloud of steam and ash that briefly rose to 49,000 feet and left a trail of pumice debris on the surface of the water. Sarigan was declared off-limits by the government of the Northern Mariana Islands after the eruption, so the seamount could be further investigated.^[1]