The park preserves and protects coral reefs, tropical rainforests, fruit bats, and the Samoan culture.

[4][5][6] Delegate Fofō Iosefa Fiti Sunia introduced a bill in 1984, at the request from Bat Preservers Association and Dr. Paul Cox, to include American Samoa in the Federal Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act.

[9] In September 2009 an earthquake and tsunami produced several large waves, resulting in 34 confirmed deaths, more than a hundred injuries and the destruction of about 200 homes and businesses.

It is separated by Mount Alava (1,610 feet (490 m)) and the Maugaloa Ridge[11] and includes the Amalau Valley, Craggy Point, Tāfeu Cove, and the islands of Pola and Manofā.

[23] Other unusual birds include the Tahiti petrel, the spotless crake, and the rare (in this locality) many-colored fruit dove.

The volcanic islands of Samoa that dominate the acreage of the national park are composed of shield volcanoes which developed from a hot spot on the Pacific Plate, emerging sequentially from west to east.

The volcanoes emerged from the intrusion of basaltic dikes from a rift zone on the ocean floor during the Pliocene Epoch, and were heavily eroded during the Pliocene and early Pleistocene Epochs, leaving behind trachyte plugs and exposed outcrops of volcanic tuff throughout the park.

This collapse produced sea cliffs over 3,000 feet high on the north side of the island, some of the highest such escarpments in the world.

Evidence exists of past submarine and surface landslides as a result of weathering and other forms of erosion of the rocks and soil making up the islands.

[24] Olivine basalts were extruded from a N. 70° E. trending rift zone, oriented along the current Afono and Masefay bays of Tutuila, in the Pliocene or earliest Pleistocene.

Thick tuffs were deposited in the Pago caldera, and the southern rim was buried by lavas composed of picritic basalts, andesites, and trachytes.

Volcanic activity renewed in the Middle Pleistocene along the same rift trend, with olivine basalt pahoehoe and aa flowing northward and southward from a point 8 miles (13 km) west from the center of the island.

Examples include the olivine basalt pahoehoe which emerged from Mount Matavanu from 1905 to 1911, and the Mauga Afi chain of spatter cones of 1902.

As a result of these and other stresses, the corals that form the reefs are projected to be lost by mid-century if carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise at their current rate.

[26] In 2018, the U.S. Mint had several candidate designs developed for the 2020 National Park of American Samoa quarter for the America the Beautiful series.

The (tails) of the quarter features a Samoan fruit bat mother hanging in a tree with her pup.

This design is intended to promote awareness to the threatened status of this species due to habitat loss and commercial hunting.

The bats on the coins were designed by Richard Alan Masters, who worked as Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh's Department of Art.

The designs were selected by the Citizen's Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) and the Commission on Fine Art (CFA).