Huge Pumice Rock 'Island' Seen Floating In South Pacific

First time accepted submitter ZombieBraintrust writes "Pumice, the lightweight stone used to smooth skin, is usually found in beauty salons, but on Thursday sailors from New Zealand's Royal Navy found nearly 10,000 square miles of the lava rock bobbing on the surface of the South Pacific Ocean."

Comments

Re:not exactly an island

[Trepidity]

I don't mean to imply at all that it's not an environmental problem, just that it's not a picturesque one consisting of a giant island of floating plastic milk jugs and lawn furniture. In some ways the reality is worse, because at least in principle you could clean up macroscopic waste (though it'd be very hard), but it's basically impossible to filter flecks of plastic from the ocean.

Beaches of pum,ice

[Sussurros]

I have many years ago seen beaches in New Zealand composed entirely of pumice. I saw them north of Gisborne on the North Island and pumice was quite literally the only thing you could see on the beach and it went at least as deep as my hand. On another small beach nearby the surface was covered entirely by pieces of abalone shell - an ancient Maori midden beach I assume but those beaches are all deserted and there's no-one around to ask.