Tis Atlantis!
(in before Darren Brown)
A librarian at Auckland Museum has shed a little bit of light on the possible origins of the “island that isn’t there”. The difficult-to-eradicate Sandy Island, which isn’t in the Coral Sea between Australia and New Caledonia, drew attention last week when an Australian scientific expedition sailed to the chart-marked location …
30km long is big for a transitory sand-bar island, but not unheard of. Fraser Island is a sand-island 200km long, though to get that big it had to be near a coastline to take advantage of a large influx of sand from erosion and a mostly-constant current direction. Changes to land-use along the Aussie east coast has caused considerable loss of sand islands and I beleive even Fraser Island was at some risk of shrinkage (and secret government-sanctioned sand-mining there across the third quarter of last century certainly didn't help!).
If the missing island managed to stay around for a few decades, it likely would have even had a good head of flora on it, which wouldn't have lasted a big storm, though.
All speculation, of course.
According to Google Earth, the depth of the Pacific Ocean at the point where Sandy Island is located is approximately 1 foot deep! Thus, depending upon the tides, the island/reef/etc. may or may not be above the surface of the water. And, note that tides are highly variable in most places in the world, since they depend upon the position of the Sun and Moon. Thus, at extreme low tide, Sandy Island may exit, but at high tide, it may not be above the surface of the water. In any case, I don't think I'd want to sail a ship with a 30 foot draw across it!
Does anyone have any idea of what the typical and extreme level of tides are in this area?
Dave
P.S. Ok, all the conspiracy theorists can chime in about global warming and rising ocean levels now.
P.P.S. Mine's the one with the inflatable raft in the pocket.
Okay, I thought that this "island" DIDNT exist on Navigational Charts?
Now they're saying it does or did appear on at least one chart.
Does anyone have access to Japanese Imperial Navy or Royal Navy charts from WWII or US Navy/NOAA charts from then (or even more recently) to see if it was ever on other charts?
There's also something of note that noone's really mentioned to my knowledge, there are also alot of Atolls which don't quite qualify as true 'islands' (one of which is claimed by the US as an Insular territory, its called Kingman Reef) because they're awash generally, especially when tides are high, but are sometimes albeit rarely visible above the water. So is it possible that this supposed disappearing island could be a case of that?
What they are saying is that the island appeared on ONE navigational chart.
From the article, the island was included in this specific Hydrographic Office chart of the South Pacific sometime between 1876 and 1908 (we only have the 1908 chart), and it was included based on the reports of the ship "Velocity". The master of the "Velocity" reported that an island of ABC description was at XY Lat-Long, and on this basis was included with the disclaimer that some parts of the map wasn't accurate (officially surveyed) but based on hearsay. That is what this article says.
We also have to look at the source of the report. My Internet research found out that the "Velocity" wasn't a hydrographic survey vessel, or a research vessel, it was a whaling ship that frequented the Coral Sea area. Not to say that the island was invented or or it's location incorrectly placed, or the island confused with another one, as it may be the whaler was completely accurate. I'm just saying it wasn't surveyed by a hydrographic service with accurate scientific equipment.
The Otago Daily Times (Issue 4615, 30 November 1876, Page 2) reports on the hydrographic information supplied by the officers of "HMS Barracouta" (1851 paddle sloop on the Australian station) on their return from a patrol of the South Pacific/Coral Sea islands. From the newspaper report we can see that in addition to the data gathered by the "Barracouta", the officers gained verbal information from the masters of the "Velocity" and the "Ripple", including information from the "Velocity" regarding "a line of sand islands" running N to S at 159.57 E and 19.7 S to 19.20 S. Note that this is the location of Sandy Island in the 1908 chart!
It isn't AN island, it is several low-lying islands probably barely above sea level, just as you surmised.
The inclusion of Sandy Island in the South Pacific charts must have stopped some point after this 1908 revision. Why? The only reasons that I can think of is either:
A) The standard required to include hydrographic features was raised by the Hydrographic Office and a speculative report by a whaler 30 or more years earlier was no longer sufficient,
or B) A hydrographic ship surveyed the area at some point after 1908 and the island was not at the reported position, and the island removed from the charts.
Icon: For the Internet sleuthing through the "Trove" archive of the NLA (http://trove.nla.gov.au/) and the "Paperspast" archive of the NLNZ (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/), not the insulting sentiment.
Surely we should claim it.
All small islands on the other side of the globe must belong to Britain or what's the Royal Navy for?
Of course if when you get there you find a volcano and a column of palm trees going past a swimming pool you should leave Tracey Island alone.
Curiously, on the "maps" view of Google earth (web version at maps.google.com), the island comes and goes depending on the level of zoom, but on the satellite photo view there is clearly an object there, although it looks like someone has redacted it it with badly-drawn large black stripes.
The news through today from the IPCC is that Sandy Island in the Pacific Ocean is confirmed to be the first low lying island to succumb to the global rise in ocean levels due to the effects of Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC).
The island, last recorded to have been seen by the whaling ship "Velocity" in 1876, is said to have been a very low level island at risk of innundation. Recent surveys of the area have confirmed the disappearance. IPCC sources state the their Global climate model successfully predicted that this island would be the first to be swamped by the rising seas although it cannot give an exact date as to when the island would have been submerged.
The UNFCCC and IPCC did confirm that they are closely monitoring a number of other low level islands but would not divulge the name or location of those islands.
could the appearance and subsequent non-showing of this 'island' be somehow related to the local tectonics? The surrounding area is part of the 'ring of fire' for a reason so maybe the whole thing was formed, and destroyed by natural processes causing sand to rise and subsequently subside? Given the vast scale of Tsunamis, Earthquakes and the like seen around there I'd expect some significant earth shifting to be involved.
disclaimer IANAG (I am not a Geologist)
'could the appearance and subsequent non-showing of this 'island' be somehow related to the local tectonics? The surrounding area is part of the 'ring of fire' for a reason so maybe the whole thing was formed, and destroyed by natural processes causing sand to rise and subsequently subside?'
Although the Coral Sea is adjacent to the Pacific 'Ring of Fire' it is a distinct geological body.
The sea appears to have been formed by crustal extension and subsidence of Eastern Australia during the fragmentation of an earlier continent (Zealandia). New Caledonia, (which is in the general region of where Sandy Island isn't) is another part of Zealandia and is depressingly geologically inert. Its north and eastern fringes are marked by the San Cristobal and Vanuatu trenches so volcanic and earthquake activity is concentrated in a sharp band along the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
There is a spreading centre in the middle of the sea but it is now extinct and my bumper map of all the world's geological wobblings shows no atolls or hot spots in that part of the ocean.
So IMHO, tectonism is out.
Since the expedition that went to look for the island found deep water, around 1400m deep, at the mapped location, a lot of these explanations just won't work.
It is still possible there is shallow water within a plausible distance for past navigation errors. This is going to need a fairly wide-ranging survey to finally settle. But they'd be looking for something pretty large to support a 30km long feature.
If it was a navigation error, the size of a chain of small islands could be the result of one island plotted in different locations, so what actually exists might be relatively small.
The ISS doesn't do photography, the nearest it does is one of the tourists (commercial or national space agency) pointing their cell phone out of the window. There are lots of commercial photo and radar earth resources satelites imaging the planet.
The issue isn't does it exist now (it doesn't) - it's why was it ever on the charts.
The ISS doesn't do photography, the nearest it does is one of the tourists (commercial or national space agency) pointing their cell phone out of the window...
Actually, there is a fair amount of serious Earth-observation photography going on, and they're using some seriously-equipped DSLRs to do it, not just someone aiming a mobile phone out a viewport. Check out the Human Spaceflight Web Gallery, under "ISS Crew Imagery". Also, needless to say, there's a wealth of high-resolution satellite photography available.
Sending a ship to the coordinates on the map would give you some "ground truth" (so to speak) for sure, but sometimes maps can be wrong -- especially older ones -- and an island that's little more than a sand bar or atoll that's sometimes below the surface depending on sea conditions, tides, etc. may not always be visible from a ship (unless it's one that's large enough to carry sonar, etc.).
Might thoughts exactly. A few years ago Nicholas Crane did a series on TV on maps through the ages. One of the programs looked at modern day maps using the London A-Z as its basis. He was using the map to go to a specific address where he'd meet some of the A-Z cartographers .... however when he got to the last turning the A-Z people were there but the (admittedly short dead-end) road he was aiming for wasn't ... the A-Z people explained that this was one of their "deliberate errors" they put in there maps precisely to enable them to spot if someone else produced maps by copying their work rather than mapping themselves.
Another reason why the origins are likely to have been forgotten. This kind of deliberate error, e.g. as was used in published log tables for the same reason, had to be kept a closely guarded secret known to very few involved in the publication, because otherwise someone copying without mapping would more likely be able to discover the deliberate error making it worthless.
Something constructed as a deliberate trade secret is more likely to become forgotten forever when it dies with those who remembered it, and the original publication goes out of copyright.
I saw a comment in a newspaper discussing this topic and it stated that this sort of copy protection was unlikely as the presence of false data in a sea chart (where peoples lives could be put at risk) would lesson people's trust in the charts and so as a rule it was not done.
So I would guess no. Also at 30km long, thats more then just a little cul de sac!
Why would having a false island that's far from shipping lanes be a problem? Removing an island that was there, now THAT would be a hazard to shipping. Having a false island in a shipping lane wouldn't be a hazard (unless you were in distress and wanted to make landfall there) but wouldn't be done as it would be quickly noticed.
Perhaps the note about it being basically a big sandbar was the excuse in case anyone went looking for it and it couldn't be found, as such sandbar islands tend to do that from time to time.
It was always charted as a big island, even on Google maps. Google maps Satellite image has a blacked out area (suspiciously? or because they thought the photo of plain sea and no island was wrong?) although the island and its name has dissapeared from the map tab over the last 3 days.
Ha. There are lots of these things on nautical maps. They usually have a note like "Reported 1937" and everyone knows they don't exist. The captain may have been drunk and may have been looking at the wrong chart. (I have personal experience of similar events. The sea is a strange place.)
These marine "features" are traditionally retained on paper maps with a dotted outline and the note, just in case, because hitting a non-existent island in the middle of the night kinda sucks even if everyone was pretty sure it wasn't there. With GPS positioning, methodical oceanography surveys, satellite mapping and reduced nautical alcohol consumption most of these tenuous features can be conclusively ruled out and are being ditched as new maps come out.
Way back in 1974, when I was a wee lad, my family emigrated from England to Australia aboard the good ship SS Britanis. (In fact, we were among the last of the so-called 10-pound-Poms before the Australian government scrapped the program.)
One of the things I clearly remember from that voyage was seeing a long, low, line along the horizon that looked exactly like a distant littoral. Since we were in the middle of the South Atlantic at the time, about 3 days out of Cape Town, Dad asked one of the crew what island it might be, way out here. The crewman replied that it wasn't land, but a low-lying cloud bank (actually a squall line), and that such formations had in the past been mistaken for land. It was not uncommon, he explained, for old charts to indicate land, or sometimes just shoals and reefs, to warn unwary captains of this (nonexistent) hazard to shipping. It certainly looked amazingly land-like, as when you're far out to sea a distant hazed-out coastline forms exactly the same long, flat shape.
So in my experience, more than likely that's exactly what Sandy island was. It would explain why someone thought there was an island there even though the water is over a kilometre deep at that point. It would also explain the apparent size, as cloud banks can easily reach dozens of kilometres in length.