Ball’s Pyramid is the world’s tallest volcanic sea stack, near Lord Howe Island.
This dramatic, uninhabited basalt islet rises 572 metres above the Pacific and lies about 20 kilometres southeast of Lord Howe Island. It is the eroded volcanic plug of a shield volcano and caldera that formed roughly 6.4 million years ago. Although only about 1,100 metres long and 300 metres wide, its steep sides make it appear even more imposing.
Ball’s Pyramid was named after Royal Navy lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, who reported it in 1788 during the same voyage in which he discovered Lord Howe Island. The first recorded successful ascent took place in 1965, after an earlier 1964 expedition had turned back because it ran short of food and water.
The stack is also important biologically. It supports the only known wild population of the Lord Howe Island stick insect, a species thought extinct after it disappeared from Lord Howe Island around 1920. Live insects were rediscovered on Ball’s Pyramid in 2001. The apostrophe matters in the canonical name: “Balls Pyramid” is a common informal variant.