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Birth of an Island
slashmojo writes that while some islands are sinking, last August another rose from the ocean, formed by volcanic activity and caught in the act by a passing yacht. From the article: "What looked like a brown stain on the South Pacific turned out to be a spectacular drift of floating pumice stones stretching more than 16 km — and an indication an island was being born nearby... 'We are getting emails from volcanologists saying this is so rare.'" Here is the blog post of the yachtsman who photographed the nascent island.
God giveth and God taketh away....
all balances out in the end we are just a small part of His PLAN
So when the earth gets a floater in the pool, it's one big mutha. Try fishing that out with a net
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
Sounds fair.
:-)
First one to the new island gets the prime beachfront property!
You usually think of these structures as having been around for at least as long as civilization, but clearly the Earth is ever-changing... very cool.
l /ainakumuwaiislandformation.htm
Here's a decent intro to island formation:
http://www.hawaii.edu/environment/ainakumuwai/htm
Magrathea!!
How the hell did I get such bad karma? I blame the meds...
Nice a new island for the new year. What more can you want?
Those pictures are amazing. But is there anything under the pumice? Or were they able to just sail through it? I'm confused...
What IS the international protocol for claiming a new island? My flag first, nearest neighbour?
that this is Blizzard's explination of how all of a sudden I had a new Island off the coast of Auberdine where the Draenei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draenei now resides? I would have liked to see pictures of that instead.
How the hell did I get such bad karma? I blame the meds...
"So" is not a synonym of "very".
Hot pumice? Global warming is making islands!
I hope scientists can get some cool information out of his. And perhaps footage of the island forming...maybe some time-lapse photography or something. That would be neat-o.
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
"slashmojo writes that while some islands are sinking, last August another rose from the ocean [CC] [MD] [GC], formed by volcanic activity and caught in the act by a passing yacht."
:)
See. I told you rich people are good for something.
This is really neat, but doesn't it strike anybody as odd that they decided to sail
*towards* an active volcano? Were they trying to get a last minute entry into the 2006 Darwin Awards or something?
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Between recent plans to map under Greenland's ice to find the home of the Elder Things and Shoggoths, and now this, I think it's obvious H.P. Lovecraft's prophecy is coming true.
All glory to Cthulhu.
First post!
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Please mod me down some more, Hitler and Saddam need a new fluffer. HINT: Burning karma is hard work.
...caught in the act by a passing yacht.
Nosy environmnetalists and their cameras. Worst than the paparazzi on a Saturday night.
No Citation but I kinda remember them picking up a new one in the 70s
The King wading through chest deep ash to plan the Tongan Flag
Oh Yeah.....Fuck the Scientists
Its fascinating that something like this, in the age of of satellite monitoring, global communications, Google Earth, can happen without vulcanologists aware of it. Its possible that military organizations detected it & then dismissed it as outside their purview & didn't pass it on, in any case it's unfortunate that such a rare event escaped study. Hopefully we'll soon see automated earth science 'anomaly' expert systems processing realtime data and alerting relevant specialists.
On the other hand, it's impressive that there were people there! That the human species is so ubiquitous on planet Earth that a random bunch of folks happened to be sailing in proximity, in what was historically one of the most isolate places on the planet. It really does bring home that there are now more folks alive today then have died in the history of our species, that we're now regularly witnessing these one-in-a-million (but what is that to six billion?!) events!
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I call dibs.
This is definitely a must-see experience, and I envy the travelers who were lucky enough to witness something so rare. However, I'm less envious of the captain when he reaches harbor and realizes that sailing through 16km of pumice is hell on the bottom paint. He's going to have fun getting that repainted. ;) (Of course, a REAL captain would just do it himself.)
Speaking from the experience of having lived on a sailboat for three years, and having painted the bottom in dry dock at least once.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
'cause this might happen to you too... http://evilunitedairlines.blogspot.com/
Before you go to the island to celebrate,
who knows when it will submerge ?
Wincopy
Even if the book's not published, what's the author's name. Has he published any other books or articles?
that yacht didn't try to pass through that "brown stain" and discover that they had just run aground.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Are you joking, or truly an idiot? (Or do you work for Big Oil?) Why would there suddenly be an increase in volcanic activity in the last 50 years?
The increase in CO2 over the last century would cause an increase in water temperature as well...
Now if I saw an island being formed, I would anchor my yacht offshore, wait for the land to cool, then plant a flag claiming it in the name of my new sovereign nation... Even if it's just a small island, it would still be cool to be the ruler of an island nation...
A man can dream...
Read my blog posts on usability.
I wonder if any of them took a second to realize what that brown stain was worth wrapped in plastic & sold in Bed Bath & Beyond.
Natural Virgin Pumice Foot Scrubbers complete with Special Snake Oil -- $19.99 ea
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Yes, because we all know that anybody with an opinion which fails to comply with the personal idealism requirements you demand of all others can only be "joking", "idiotic" or a shill for "Big Oil".
This is the main reason I don't give a fuck about shrill morons such as yourself and your opponents, or your hobby causes: you simply aren't worth my time.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Can he name the Island as he was the first to see it/step on it?
I guess he could try to keep the Island for himself, but I guess it would then be his responsibility to protect it from other invaders..
he offers a fresh look from outside the field.
Oh, crackpot. Gotcha.
They are making more land these days!
he offers a fresh look from outside the field
Translation: He drags up stale non-sequiters because he hasn't got a fucking clue.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Global warming is all our fault. But this other stuff, yeah. We live in on an amazingly complex planet.
"Why would there suddenly be an increase in volcanic activity in the last 50 years?"
/rant
Apparently melting glaciers have caused a slight increase in sismic activity. Some oddballs think increased sismic activity equates to increased vulcanisim and "disproves" AGW or at least absolves human's of any blame. Kinda like some poeple still insist on perverting science to support a literal interpretation of "The" bible, only they pervert science to support their version of "The" economy.
"The increase in CO2 over the last century would cause an increase in water temperature as well..."
Indeed it has and will continue to do so for another half century even if we stopped all emmissions today, the accompaning "thermal expansion" from the wamer water is a large part of the predicted sea level rises. However the lag between atmosphere warming and ocean warming (that incidently demonstrates cause/effect) means that we are only just now seeing the full effect of the CO2 released in the 50's. Even worse than wet feet is that as the ocean dissolves more CO2 it becomes acidic creating a hostile environment for things on the bottom of the food chain, like phytoplankton and coral. Coral reefs in particular are the "cannaries" of the ocean and 30% of them are now dead.
Mankind (including this little black duck), lacks the enlightenment to eliminate poverty and look after the garden with or without a religion although I suspect we have the ability to do so. The industrial revolution has become Frankenstien's monster turning on it's master first with sophisticated weapons and three-eyed fish, and finally a increasingly likely global famine. Yet I as much as any other would still like a technological fix so my showers can last more than three minutes (where I live the cities are on permenent and increasingly severe water rations). Preferably I would like to see it achived by getting economists "onboard" to suggest ways of "steering" the global economy in the "green" and "human rights" direction (eg: The Stern report) rather than the false greenie vs capitalist dichotomy that has been shoved down our throats since the 70's and has done nothing but squander time.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
When lava pours out near the sea surface, tremendous volcanic explosions sometimes occur. In time, submarine seamounts, or islands, are formed. When lava flows underwater, it behaves differently. And a new contraption to capture a 'dandelion' in one piece has been put together by the crew. The preparation for a dive is always a tense time. When lava pours out near the sea surface, tremendous volcanic explosions sometimes occur.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn...
Try Ubuntu GNU/Linux, it's great!!!
We are getting emails from volcanologists saying this is so rare, but I thought "naw, forget it". Yo homes to Bel-Air!
This just in! The new island has suddenly lurched into the air and is now headed skywards. There are unconfirmed reports that a man with a cape was seen at the bottom of this former island. It was assumed to be Superman but since the island was made of kryptonite, this is actively being debated on the internet.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Can we please get some more sunday night editors....
P.S. Redirect it where you will. I'm getting tired of the monday tuesday morning flood. It's would be nice to have at least three stories ready late night sunday. Republish a few latent rehashes if you have to.
Quick, someone bring a flag! One thing they're not making anymore of these days is land - this is a rare opportunity to increase our land ownership without having to kill anyone!
or else!
Haha, agreed. "says that oceanographers have 50+ years of data logging ocean temperatures, that prove this theory beyond any shadow of a doubt." We mapped the globe for 2000 years and some people still believe the earth is round. Face it, all science is based on public perspective. What the world believes is what is labeled facts ;)
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Am I the only one who thinks we should agree to leave this new island pristine and uninhabited and study it as nature takes hold? I think it would be fascinating to watch as plants then birds then whatever else begin to colonize the island. Perhaps in a few hundred to a few thousand years we'd see some natural selection a la Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands.
i've always wanted a brand new island made in the last fiscal year. guess i ought to buy this one... but... who owns it?
It's global warming!!! Now we're causing the interior of the planet to heat up and islands are bubbling up everywhere! Oh noes!!11oneone!1
What a great story for the new year, but it should be said that this island formed this past august.
h ownh.php3?img_id=13971
Someone posted these links to satellite pics on the blog page.
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01899
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/s
No kidding. I was sailing from New Zealand to Vanuatu when this happened. Our ham radio was awash in traffic as this thing surfaced. The problem with pumice is that it floats on the water and reduces the surface tension. When your boat goes through it, you get all your expensive ablative paint scraped off...and then you sink a few feet into the water. If you don't have enough freeboard (the amount of boat height from waterline to decking), then you *will* sink. The other thing is that you can't actually use your motor very well, so you have try to sail out...this is obviously a problem during nighttime when you can't see anything and you end up running right into it. That'll wake you up.
This is the second Slashdot story I have seen in the last week with an ambiguous use of the word "so." I hate to sound like a grammar nazi, but when you say something is "so rare" or (as in the previous story) contains "so many variables," you have to complete the the comparison, or you just sound like an idiot.
Please, tell me how rare it is -- "so rare" THAT WHAT?
If islands can rise like that, it can only mean that sea levels are falling as global warming increases evaporation and...
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Word of the Day for Monday, January 1, 2007 nascent \NAS-uhnt; NAY-suhnt\, adjective: Beginning to exist or having recently come into existence; coming into being. not that nascent is a particularly tricky word, but i just thought it was funny to see someone actually using it as intended :D
I must be more sleep-deprived than I thought.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Volcanic erruptions may not create a lot seismic noise to be detected by worldwide seismographs or submarine hydrophones. There may not be an explosion. There is a volcanic noise called "harmonic earthquake" which kind of a long gurgle of moving lava. Fault earthquakes have sharp onsets, many frequencies, and strong energy while harmonic quakes dont have sharp onsets and are relatively monochromatic. Quake observation software is not tuned for these kind of quakes.
And pass the hot grit!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton