evidence: Location - The "Scattered islands" (literal translation of "les Iles Éparses") stretch down the length of the Mozambique Channel, between the east coast of Africa and Madagascar. Glorieuses island (11.3°S) and Geyser bank, close to Mayotte, are in the north, Juan de Nova is in the center, adjacent to the Madagascar coast, and Bassas da India and Europa (22.4°S) are in the south. [...] Juan de Nova is at a point off the Madagascar west coast characterized by significant aggregations of marine mammals, an indicator of high productivity likely driven by interactions between eddies and the shallowest sections of the Davie ridge. Europa and Bassas de India, in the center of the southern Mozambique channel, experience mature eddy systems. [...] Juan de Nova is a small coral island (about 6 km²) on a 250 km² coral reef platform. It consists of beachrock and sand dunes up to 12 m in height. The coral structures extend 12 km north and 2 km south of the island. The asymmetry of the reef bank, linked to the tilting of the island results in different reef morphologies: in the south the island has a well defined reef flat between 0 and 3 m depth, while in the north it slopes down slowly to 20 m deep before dropping to >2000 m to the channel bottom. On the island, phosphate deposits in the form of guano were exploited from 1900 to 1968.