Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
I hate to be the spoil sport but this island is not new at all. It was discovered on August 12th. This was in some online articles months ago. Its interesting to read about still but its not a NYE island.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Here are the images from NASA and the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
e f.html
o mereef/homereef.html
http://www.ulb.ac.be/sciences/cvl/homereef/homere
Mirror: http://www.ulb.ac.be.nyud.net:8080/sciences/cvl/h
Actually, as soon as I saw this article, I went on Google Earth and looked for it. It's there!
Here are the coordinates: 18 59 25.13 S, 174 45 46.40 W
Naturally, I immediately made a placemark.
It's the city of R'lyeh arising from the slumbering depths!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagnOne line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
But... (a bit off-topic)
maggard wrote: It really does bring home that there are now more folks alive today then have died in the history of our species This is actually an urban legend. Demographers put the estimate at roughly 80 billion dead throughout history. Modest estimates put the total number of people alive today at approximately 6% of the total of all people who have ever lived.
Links:
http://www.economist.com/diversions/millennium/di
http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.htm
http://www.rateitall.com/i-885386-the-number-of-p
I gave up religion for Lent.
Depends on where its at. This particular island lies within the already recognized territorial waters of Tonga, so it belongs to them. Since most new islands would form in volcanic chains with pre-existing atolls and islands, this is likely to be the case the vast majority of the time.
If you did manage to spot an island forming outside of the territorial waters of another nation, the biggest gun rule generally applies. You can claim it yourself and try to create your own nation, but good luck defending it when someone with bigger guns than you decides to grab it. Until you have a settled population on the island, nobody is going to care that some lone nut got kicked off a speck of rock in the middle of the ocean. He who had the biggest guns wins. Until you actually get a population, nobody is going to recognize you as a nation. As a example, the Republic of Minerva was set up in the 1970's on infill located on an unclaimed atoll...basically, a bunch of dirt was piled on an atoll to create an artificial island. Nobody paid much attention to the island or the builders claims, and eventually Tonga sent their army over, evicted the guy, and claimed the island for themselves. Since there was no actual population living on the island, little attention was paid to the "invasion". The people involved in building the island still whine about their claim and call themselves the "government in exile", but without a population to represent or an army to defend themselves, they're little more than a paper organization. The island, as I understand it, was allowed to erode back into the sea. Only a few narrow spits of land ringing the reefs remain.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
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