query: country sahul shelf
supports: Western Australia (abbreviated as WA) is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres (976,790 sq mi), and the second-largest country subdivision in the world  however, a significant part of it is sparsely populated. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants, around 11% of the national total. 92% of the population lives in the south-west corner of the state. Vanuatu (or ; Bislama ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (Bislama: "Ripablik blong Vanuatu"), is a Pacific island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji. Tasmania (abbreviated as Tas and known colloquially as "Tassie") is an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is located to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 518,500, just over forty percent of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, which forms the metropolitan area of the state capital and largest city, Hobart. East Timor or Timor-Leste (Tetum: "Timór Lorosa'e"), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a sovereign state in Maritime Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor; the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco; and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island surrounded by Indonesian West Timor. The country's size is about 15,410 km (5,400 sq mi). The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. The continental shelf is an underwater landmass which extends from a continent, resulting in an area of relatively shallow water known as a shelf sea. Much of the shelves were exposed during glacial periods and interglacial periods. Natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly including varying amounts of other higher alkanes, and sometimes a small percentage of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium. It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of chemical bonds in the gas. The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean or the Austral Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. As such, it is regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions: smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean. This ocean zone is where cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters. Sanskrit (English pronunciation:; written in Devanagari script ; : or ', originally ', "refined speech") is the primary sacred language of Hinduism and "Mahyna" Buddhism, a philosophical language in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. It was also a literary language that was in use as a "lingua franca" in ancient and medieval South Asia. It is a standardised dialect of Old Indo-Aryan, originating as Vedic Sanskrit and tracing its linguistic ancestry back to Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European. Today it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand. As one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. Indonesia (or ; Indonesian: ), officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania. Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the world's largest island country, with more than seventeen thousand islands. At , Indonesia is the world's 14th-largest country in terms of land area and world's 7th-largest country in terms of combined sea and land area. It has an estimated population of over 260 million people and is the world's fourth most populous country, the most populous Austronesian nation, as well as the most populous Muslim-majority country. The world's most populous island of Java contains more than half of the country's population. Papua New Guinea (PNG  Hiri Motu: "Papua Niu Gini"), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. Canberra (or )
  is the capital city of Australia. With a population of 381,488, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne. A resident of Canberra is known as a "Canberran". Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari:  , "Mnak Hind") or simply Hindi (Devanagari: , "Hind"), is an Indian language and a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language. Hindi is one of the official languages of India, and is the "lingua franca" of the Hindi belt languages. Outside India, Hindi is an official language in Fiji, and is a recognised regional language in Mauritius, Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago. An ocean (the sea of classical antiquity) is a body of saline water that composes much of a planet's hydrosphere. On Earth, an ocean is one of the major conventional divisions of the World Ocean, which covers almost 71% of its surface. These are, in descending order by area, the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern (Antarctic), and Arctic Oceans. The word "sea" is often used interchangeably with "ocean" in American English but, strictly speaking, a sea is a body of saline water (generally a division of the world ocean) partly or fully enclosed by land. The Timor Sea is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, to the south by Australia and to the west by the Indian Ocean. Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds the world's largest natural harbour, and sprawls towards the Blue Mountains to the west. Residents of Sydney are known as "Sydneysiders". Sydney is the second official seat and second official residence of the Governor-General of Australia and the Prime Minister of Australia and many federal ministries maintain substantial presences in Sydney. Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east. Australia's capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney. A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in size to smallest, they are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. In geology, areas of continental crust include regions covered with water. Maritime Southeast Asia is the maritime region of Southeast Asia as opposed to mainland Southeast Asia and comprises Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia. Maritime Southeast Asia is sometimes also referred to as "island Southeast Asia" or "insular Southeast Asia". The 19th-century term "Malay Archipelago" refers to a largely similar area.  North West Cape is a peninsula in the north-west of Western Australia. Cape Range runs down the spine of the peninsula and Ningaloo Reef runs along the western edge. It includes the town of Exmouth. East Nusa Tenggara ( NTT) is a province of Indonesia. It is located in the eastern part of the Lesser Sunda Islands and includes West Timor. It has a total area of 48,718.1 km, and the population at the 2010 Census was 4,683,827; the latest official estimate in January 2014 was 5,070,746. The provincial capital is Kupang on West Timor. The Tanimbar Islands, also called Timur Laut, are a group of about 65 islands in the Maluku province of Indonesia, including Fordata, Larat, Maru, Molu, Nuswotar, Selaru, Selu, Seira, Wotap, Wuliaru and Yamdena. The Indonesian phrase "timur laut" means 'northeast'. Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor, on the eastern part, and Indonesia, on the western part. The Indonesian part, also known as West Timor, constitutes part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Within West Timor lies an exclave of East Timor called Oecusse District. The island covers an area of . The name is a variant of "timur", Malay for "east"; it is so called because it lies at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands. The Bird's Head Peninsula (Indonesian: "Kepala Burung") or Doberai Peninsula is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea and the Province of West Papua, Indonesia. (See also Bird's Tail Peninsula.) Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20.4 % of its total land area. With 1.1 billion people as of 2013, it accounts for about 15% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states (countries), nine territories and two "de facto" independent states with limited or no recognition. The Aru Islands (also Aroe Islands or Kepulauan Aru) are a group of about ninety-five low-lying islands in the Maluku province of eastern Indonesia. They also form a regency of Maluku province, with a land area of 6,269 square kilometres. Antarctica (US English , UK English or ) is Earth's southernmost continent. It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At , it is the fifth-largest continent. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages in thickness, which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula. Earth, otherwise known as the world, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets. The Sahul Shelf / shul / is part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent and lies off the coast of mainland Australia . The Sahul Shelf proper stretches northwest from Australia much of the way under the Timor Sea towards Timor , ending where the seabed begins descending into the Timor Trough . Another part of the Sahul Shelf is known also as the Arafura Shelf and runs all the way from the northern coast of Australia under the Arafura Sea to New Guinea . The Aru Islands rise from the Arafura Shelf . The Sahul Shelf is sometimes taken to also include the Rowley Shelf which runs out under the Indian Ocean from the northwest coast of Australia as far south as North West Cape . When sea levels fell during the Pleistocene ice age , including the last glacial maximum about 18,000 years ago , the Sahul Shelf was exposed as dry land . Evidence of the shoreline of this time has been identified in locations which now lie 100 to 140 metres below sea level . A useful interactive timeline of sea level changes has been developed by Monash University . The Arafura Shelf formed a land bridge between Australia , New Guinea , and the Aru Islands , and these lands share many marsupial mammals , land birds , and freshwater fish as a result . Lydekker 's Line , a biogeographical line , runs along the edge of Sahul Shelf where it drops off into the deep waters of the Wallacea biogeographical area . Wallacea sits in a gap between the Sahul Shelf and the Sunda Shelf , part of the continental shelf of Southeast Asia . The name `` Sahull '' or `` Sahoel '' appeared on 17th century Dutch maps applied to a submerged sandbank between Australia and Timor . On his 1803 map , Matthew Flinders noted the `` Great Sahul Shoal '' where Malays came from Makassar to fish for trepang ( sea cucumber ) . The existence of the much larger Sahul Shelf was suggested in 1845 by G.W. Earl who called it the `` Great Australian Bank '' and noted that macropods ( `` kangaroos '' ) were found on Australia , New Guinea , and the Aru Islands . Earl also suggested the existence of the Sunda Shelf which he called the `` Great Asiatic Bank '' . The Sahul and Sunda shelves were given their present names by G.A.F. Molengraaff and Max Wilhelm Carl Weber in 1919 . New Zealand is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmassesthat of the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Mui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamuand numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal and plant life. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland. An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, e.g. the Philippines. The Timor Trough is an oceanic trough that is a continuation of the Sunda Trench that marks the boundary between Indo-Australian Plate's continental shelf and the Timor Plate to the north. It is separated from the Java Trench by a sag near Sumba Island at the Scott Plateau and North Australian Basin, and on the other end becomes Tanimbar trough southeast of the Tanimbar Islands continuing on to the Aur trough east of the Kai Islands near Bird's Head Peninsula on New Guinea. Lining the north of the trough are numerous islands, of which Timor is the largest. Further west are the Weber Basin and Banda Trench. Oil and natural gas have been found south of the trough and the region is geologically active with numerous earthquakes. Solomon Islands is a sovereign country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania lying to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu and covering a land area of . The country's capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The country takes its name from the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the North Solomon Islands (part of Papua New Guinea), but excludes outlying islands, such as Rennell and Bellona, and the Santa Cruz Islands. The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and surrounding ocean, and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of Indian and Australian plates 43 million years ago. Recent studies, and seismic events such as the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquakes, suggest that the Indo-Australian Plate may have broken up into two or three separate plates due primarily to stresses induced by the collision of the Indo-Australian Plate with Eurasia along the Himalayas, and that the Indian Plate and Australian Plate have been separate since at least . India, officially the Republic of India ("Bhrat Gaarjya"), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people), and the most populous democracy in the world. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia. Its capital is New Delhi; other metropolises include Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering (approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface). It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean or, depending on definition, by Antarctica. It is named after the country of India. The Indian Ocean is known as "Ratnkara", ""the mine of gems"" in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as "Hind Mahsgar", ""the great Indian sea"", in Hindi. The Arafura Sea lies west of the Pacific Ocean overlying the continental shelf between Australia and Indonesian New Guinea. New Guinea (or, historically, "") is a large Island in the South West Pacific region. The Kai Islands (also Kei Islands) of Indonesia are a group of islands located in the south-eastern part of the Maluku Islands, in Maluku Province. The Malakus have been known as the Spice Islands due to region specific plants such as nutmeg, mace and cloves that originally intrigued European nations of the 16th century.
candidates: antarctic antarctica atlantic ocean australia brunei carbon east timor fiji guinea guyana hindi india indonesia madagascar malaysia mauritius new caledonia new zealand pakistan papua new guinea philippines solomon islands sri lanka suriname tonga vanuatu wales western australia world
answer: papua new guinea