Scientists 'Undiscover' Pacific Island

[Ryan Ruck]

Where Did It Go? Scientists 'Undiscover' Pacific Island

November 22, 2012

Most explorers dream of discovering uncharted territory, but a team of Australian scientists have done the exact opposite.

They have found an island that doesn't exist.

The island, named Sandy Island on Google Earth, also exists on marine charts and world maps and allegedly sits between Australia and New Caledonia in the south Pacific.



But when the voyage's chief scientist, Maria Seton, and her crew sailed past where the island should be, they found nothing but blue ocean.
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"We became suspicious when the navigation charts used by the ship showed a depth of 1400 metres in an area where our scientific maps and Google Earth showed the existence of a large island," Dr Maria Seton, a geologist from the University of Sydney, said.

"Somehow this error has propagated through to the world coastline database from which a lot of maps are made."

The missing island has regularly appeared in scientific publications since at least 2000.

"Even onboard the ship, the weather maps the captain had showed an island in this location," Dr Seton said.

Neither the French government - the invisible island would sit within French territorial waters if it existed - nor the ship's nautical charts, which are based on depth measurements, had the island marked on their maps.

Dr Seton had no idea how the island came to be on so many maps, but she is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Steven Micklethwaite from the University of Western Australia said, "We all had a good giggle at Google as we sailed through the island, then we started compiling information about the seafloor, which we will send to the relevant authorities so that we can change the world map."

Mike Prince, the director of charting services for the Australian Hydrographic Service, a department within the Navy that produces the country’s official nautical charts, said the world coastline database incorporated individual reports that were sometimes old or contained errors.

"We take anything off that database with a pinch of salt," he said.

While some map makers intentionally include phantom streets to deter copyright infringements, that was not standard practice with nautical charts, said Mr Prince.

"[That would] reduce confidence in what is actually correct," he said.

Nabil Naghdy, the product manager of Google Maps for Australia and New Zealand, said Google Earth consulted a variety of authoritative public and commercial data sources in building its maps.

"The world is a constantly changing place, and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavour,’’ Mr Naghdy said.

He encouraged users to alert Google to incorrect entires using the 'Report a Problem' tool, found at the bottom right corner of the map, which they would then confirm with other users or data providers.

The discovery took place onboard the RV Southern Surveyor, Australia's Marine National Facility research vessel, during a 25-day research trip in the eastern Coral Sea.

Large fragments of eastern Australia split from the mainland as the Tasman Sea formed about 100 million years ago, when Australia split apart from the super continent Gondwana, which included Antarctica, India and Africa.

"This dispersed all the continental fragments in the area, which subsided and [went] below sea level," Dr Seton, who docked in Brisbane on Monday, said.

"We went to find those fragments of our country," she said.

The team collected 197 different rock samples, more than 6800 km of marine geophysical data and mapped over 14,000 square kilometres of the ocean floor.

They also recovered limestone, which forms from near surface coral reefs, from a depth of three kilometres.

"That means we've had this massive drowning of the area. That's was a surprising discovery," said Dr Seton.

I suspect either this:



Or this:



is to explain.

[American Patriot]

tipped right over.

Did you hear the clip of that Hannity played (I think it was yesterday) - I almost had to pull over I was laughing so hard.

The Admiral answered "We don't anticipate that happening..." hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Ryan Ruck]

I didn't hear it yesterday but, I did post that video here after it occurred. The admiral was a consummate professional in his response. I would have been tempted to get up and slap him upside the head.

[American Patriot]

lol

I don't know if I could have remained "professional" under such circumstances.

I think it was the article you posted yesterday about winning the lotto where the guy mentioned one of idiot actresses being elected to the House of Reps... I would rather have her than that guy. (No, that's really true). How DO these people get in office?

[Ryan Ruck]

Speaking of Hank Johnson, he has issued forth more oral feces - Dem Rep. Hank Johnson: Amend Constitution to Restrict Freedom of Speech.

[American Patriot]

This "island" might well have existed and has since vanished beneath the waves. So this was NOT a modern "error" - the island IS on a chart.

It's not uncommon for such things to happen either. Erosion is consistent with the Pacific ocean where storms come through.

It is not unheard of for low-lying islands to be completely under water during a hurricane storm surge.
Not a Google error? 'Phantom' Pacific island Sandy found on 136-year-old maps

A "phantom" Pacific island -- dismissed as a modern-day "digitisation error" on Google Earth after researchers discovered it did not exist -- in fact appears on a century-old British Admiralty chart, it has emerged.

The British Admiralty chart from 1908 Photo: Auckland Museum








By Paul Chapman in Wellington

4:43AM GMT 29 Nov 2012




Australian scientists who sailed to a remote spot in the Coral Sea to investigate Sandy Island, which is shown on some modern maps, found only open water and concluded the feature was a recent cartographic mistake.



But the mystery has deepened after a librarian in New Zealand spotted the island on a 1908 British Admiralty chart.



The chart records it as having been sighted by a ship named Velocity in 1876.



Shaun Higgins, pictorial librarian at Auckland Museum, told the Telegraph: "We have an extensive map collection and when I read about the vanishing island I simply went looking through them.



"I had a suspicion the island might be on older maps, and it felt quite good to find it.

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"It's great to see it has been there for so long."


Mr Higgins noted that a caveat to mariners on the map reads: "Caution is necessary while navigating among the low-lying islands of the Pacific Ocean.


"The general details have been collated from the voyages of various navigators extending over a long series of years.


"The relative position of many dangers may therefore not be exactly given."


He suggests the crew of Velocity, which is thought to have been a whaler, logged the island 136 years ago as a warning to other seafarers but may have recorded it in the wrong position.



"There are a lot of low-lying reefs to the west of where it is shown," he said.


"I guess how the island managed to appear, disappear and reappear on various maps and charts over time is just a mystery of the sea."


^{A Google Maps location of Sandy Island (AFP/Getty Images)}
His discovery has prompted comments on the museum's blogsite, including the suggestion that the island may have been a sandbar that existed in the 19th century but has since been covered by the sea.


Another writer says he has a copy of The Times Atlas of 1897 which shows it.


Sandy Island appears to measure about 15 miles by three miles on Google maps, and supposedly lies midway between Australia and French-governed New Caledonia.


When intrigued Australian academics sailed to the location during a recent 25-day scientific voyage they were stunned to find nothing there.


Exposing the island's strange saga earlier this month, Dr Maria Seton of the University of Sydney said: "We wanted to check it out because the navigation charts on board the ship showed a water depth of 4,620ft in that area -- very deep, "It's on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We're really puzzled. It's quite bizarre.


"Somehow this error has propagated through to the world coastline database from which a lot of maps are made."

[Malsua]

The water is 4600 feet deep. No way in hell that "sank".

[American Patriot]

I have my doubts too. But then again, I haven't looked directly a chart of the area myself, so I can't say it's 4600 feet haha. (I'll see if I can find anything on it)

Earthquakes moving the plate, major erosion...

I think a more likely "cause" is the original Admiralty map is actually in error and some other island was sighted and they weren't 100% sure of their position and mapped it.

The Google issue was probably from reading old maps into the computer.

[American Patriot]

Then again, there's a theory it could "tip over" if we put too many people there. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[American Patriot]

Just for some baseline here..... from Wikipedia:

In 1774, Captain James Cook charted a "Sandy Island", 420 kilometers due east at approximately 19º S latitude, and at just less than 164 degrees of longitude (rather than just less than 160 degrees of longitude for the phantom "Sandy Island" on charts and maps after 1876). The associated map was published in 1776, and is available in the David Rumsey Map Collection. French maps from 1826 and 1875 show "Ile de Sable(s)" at the location of Cook's "Sandy Island".^[2]

An early appearance of Sandy Island at this location, on an UK Hydrographic Office 1908 nautical chart that had several editions throughout the last quarter of the 19th century.^[3]



The island was also included on a 1908 British Admiralty chart, with a notation attributing its charting to a whaler called the Velocity in the year 1876.^[4][5][3] After returning from a voyage in the Pacific, the ship's master reported two unusual features. The first was a series of "heavy breakers", the second some "Sandy Islets", or Sandy Island. Both then appeared in an Australian maritime directory for 1879. It noted the islets extended north and south "along the meridian 159º 57' E" and "between lat 19º 7' S and 19º 20' S".^[6] The description is a good match to that of the Chesterfield Islands, a short distance westwards on the Bellona Plateau. At the time when the chart was created, it was standard practice for all potential navigation hazards to be listed on such charts, as a precaution.

The claim that the island did not exist was first made by amateur radio enthusiasts on a DX-pedition in April 2000.^[7][8] They noted that it was shown on some maps, but not on others such as the 1999 Times Atlas of the World, 10th Edition.^[8] A discovery of the island's absence was again made on 22 November 2012 by Australian scientists aboard the RV Southern Surveyor studying plate tectonics in the area. During the voyage, they noticed a discrepancy between different maps and decided to sail to the supposed location to investigate. The crew found no island and recorded depths never less than 1,300 metres (4,300 ft).^[1][9][10] They found that "The ocean floor actually didn't ever get shallower than 1,300 meters below the wave base…"^[11]

So a survey ship found the depth to be around 4300 feet.

My thinking is that the island never existed (not in that SPOT anyway) and Cook made a mistake on his charts and logs.

But, having read a major portion of Captain Cooks journals, I find that difficult to believe - he was one of the most ANAL RETENTIVE people I've ever read. lol

[American Patriot]

My BEST guess is that Cook mischarted it originally and the Admiralty perpetuated the "island" on future charts, which then propagated through other charts over time.

So, it's one little place - misplaced - and continued to be mischarted for three hundred years

[American Patriot]

And this in RED:

Mystery island on 1908 map

KIRSTY JOHNSTON Last updated 05:00 26/11/2012

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Fairfax Australia
A team of Australian scientists discover that an island in the Pacific, which appears on maps and weather charts, doesn't exist.


OUT OF THIS WORLD: Sandy Island, marked on maps since 2000, is not there.



The mystery of a disappearing island in the South Pacific may have been solved by a curious librarian at Auckland Museum.


Until this week, Sandy Island was believed to sit between Australia and New Caledonia in the South Pacific, plotted on Google Earth, marine charts and world maps.


But when a team of Australian scientists sailed past the island's supposed location on a recent research trip, the island was nowhere to be seen.


"We became suspicious when the navigation charts used by the ship showed a depth of 1400 metres in an area where our scientific maps and Google Earth showed the existence of a large island," said Dr Maria Seton, a geologist from the University of Sydney.


"Somehow this error has propagated through to the world coastline database from which a lot of maps are made."
The missing island has regularly appeared in scientific publications since at least 2000.


"Even onboard the ship, the weather maps the captain had, showed an island in this location," Dr Seton said.


Neither the French Government - the invisible island would sit within French territorial waters if it existed - nor the ship's nautical charts, which are based on depth measurements, had the island marked on their maps.


Intrigued by the mystery, Auckland Museum's pictorial librarian Shaun Higgins went looking through the museum's vast collection of maps, which dates back as far as the 1700s.


Eventually, Higgins found a 1908 map which showed the island, which appears to be about the size of Great Barrier in the Hauraki Gulf.

According to the map the island was discovered by the ship the Velocity in 1876 - but on the map was a caveat that warned the information may not be reliable, as it was gathered over a number of trips.


A note on the map reads: "Caution is necessary while navigating among the low-lying islands of the Pacific Ocean. The general details have been collated from the voyages of various navigators extending over a long series of years. The relative position of many dangers may therefore not be exactly given."


Higgins said how the island managed to appear, disappear and reappear on various maps and charts over time was "a mystery of the sea".


"No doubt some out there will believe the island is still there, or has simply moved south for the summer," he wrote in a blog post about his research.


The "un-discovery" of Sandy Island took place onboard the RV Southern Surveyor, Australia's Marine National Facility research vessel, during a 25-day research trip in the eastern Coral Sea.

[American Patriot]

It certainly isn’t the first case of maps showing islands that aren’t there. Have a look at the 1650 map of the Pacific (below), with its string of large islands extending from the tip of South America to a point not far from where Auckland ought to be.