Pacific Coral Islands as Living Laboratories of the Anthropocene

This paper argues that nature writing on Pacific coral islands, by authors such as Johann Reinhold Forster, Otto von Kotzebue, Adelbert von Chamisso, Charles Darwin, and Alexander von Humboldt, anticipates core ideas of contemporary Earth System Science. The encounters of these circumnavigators with natural forces during their voyages, particularly tectonic uplift and subsidence in the Pacific’s geological formation, and their repeated recognition of coral’s collaborative capacity to build entire islands, inspired a profound sense of awe at nature’s agency. The paper contends that, in their travel reports and scientific classifications, coral islands are discursively shaped to function as living laboratories of the Anthropocene. Their deep-time natural histories provide models for comprehending the development of the Earth System as animated by the interaction of its various spheres. Viewed in retrospect, these naturalists emerge as historical allies of a Gaian perception of the Earth System, and their engagement with coral reefs merits renewed attention.