Today, its peaks are covered by lush green forests.
Many scientists believe that this fantastic terraformation may hold the key to the future colonization of Mars.
Volcanic activity continued to shape the island as recently as a thousand years ago.
As such, most of the island is covered with young volcanic soils, lava fields and cinder deposits.
Small shrubs and grasses were the only thing that grew here before human intervention.
Location of Ascension Island.
Coming from St Helena, Darwin did not expect much from the island.
Indeed the whole island may be compared to a huge ship kept in first-rate order, he commented.
Others shared Darwin’s sentiment.
View from atop Green Mountain.
Photo:Lord Harris/Wikimedia Commons
Seven years later, British botanist and explorer Joseph Hooker visited the island.
The plants were specifically chosen to withstand the harsh conditions of life on this volcanic desert.
In twenty years, more than five thousand trees had begun to take root.
These trees were planted to be used as replacement masts for sailing ships.
Lush bamboo grove on Green Mountain.
Photo:Ben Goode | Dreamstime.com
With the change in vegetation, the climate of the island too changed.
Before terraforming began hardly a cloud passed overhead and rainfall was rare.
After vegetation began, settlers on the island noticed that rain storms became more frequent.
The development of forest on Ascension Island also caused a shift in the islands water cycle.
Previously, the biggest problem with Ascension Island was water retention.
This created a humid microclimate that cooled the landscape, and increased the chances of more rain.
Mist covered forest on Ascension Island.
Above, 660 meters is the misty, wet zone that is completely forested.
How glorious is the heavenly air up here!, wrote A. C. H. Rice in 1926.
How cool and clean after the dusty dried-up lava pandemonium below!
In 2005, Green Mountain became Ascension Islands first National Park.
Green Mountain, Ascension Island.
Photo:LordHarris/Wikimedia Commons
There is an important lesson to be learnt from Ascension Island.
Since 1990, the earth has lost an estimated 420 million hectares of forest.
As the human population continue to rise, that number is only going to get bigger.
Dr. Dave Wilkinson, an ecologist at Liverpool John Moores University, finds Ascension Island’s strange ecosystem exciting.
