It is an atoll of sorts, although the land completely surrounds Laysan Lake, some 2.4 m (7.9 ft) above sea level, that has a salinity approximately three times greater than the ocean.

A U.S. Geological Survey study found that Laysan, Midway Atoll, and Pacific islands like them, could become inundated and unfit to live on during the 21st century.

The whalers were among many who took advantage of the newly discovered whaling grounds off the coast of Japan, making the waters around the Northwest Hawaiian archipelago an increasingly popular commercial route.

A United States government survey of Pacific Ocean geography in 1828 included the earlier whalers' reports, as well as a sighting of an island fitting Laysan's description by a Captain "Brigs".

In 1859, Captain Brooks, of the ship Gambia, traveled to the island and wrote that there was guano there, but "not of sufficient quantity to warrant any attempts to get it".

[9] Given that, towards the end of the guano mining era, iron-hulled sailing ships had a capacity of 5,000 short tons (4,500 t), Laysan produced a shipload every two months.

[citation needed] The publicity about Laysan attracted scientists and, in the next decade, many of the island's unique species were scientifically examined for the first time.

In those eight years, the Pritchardia palms that were unique to Laysan, and the island's sandalwood trees (Santalum ellipticum), both became extinct.

1894 marked the arrival of Laysan's most notorious inhabitant, German immigrant Max Schlemmer, who was the superintendent of the guano mining operation.

Fish and Wildlife Service, who have had success in eliminating pests, restoring the island's vegetation, and boosting the populations of species considered endangered.

That poses a danger to birds because they can swallow plastic waste, which remains undigested and crowds their stomachs, leaving no room for their normal food.

[12] Additionally, in the 1990s, biologists found that a container of poisonous carbofuran had floated ashore and burst open above the high tide line, creating a "dead zone" in which any living thing was killed.

[13] In 1991, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service began an effort to eradicate sandbur, an alien grass, which was first introduced in the 1960s by US Armed Forces personnel.

It affected workers on Laysan in varying levels of severity: one woman was evacuated for persistent fever, but others exhibited very mild symptoms.

[17] In 2003, an archaeologist examining sediment cores found pollen from coconut palms deep below the bottom of the central lagoon.

Dating the sediment containing the Cocos pollen is imprecise, but appears to have been deposited some time between 5,500 years ago and the arrival of Europeans in Hawaiian waters in the late 18th century.

However, cores from Guam in the western Pacific show the presence of coconut trees there as early as 9,000 years ago, well before human habitation.