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The Disappearance of Sandy Island

The idea of an island off the east coast of Australia going missing seems rather abstract, but did it really disappear, or did it never exist in the first place?

By People! Just say Something!Published 3 years ago 4 min read
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Back in the 1770s, famed explorer Captain James Cook charted the east coast of Australia for the British Empire. While on this expedition around the giant landmass, he mapped the discovery of a “Sandy I.” off the tip of New Caledonia within the Coral Sea. His charted map titled “Chart of Discoveries made in the South Pacific Ocean” was later published in 1776. And despite Cook’s use of dead reckoning, the area’s coordinates were roughly accurate to within 20 miles.

'A' indicating the location of Sandy Island between Australia and New Caledonia

Since it discovery, there was no further report of its existence until 100 years later when a whaling ship named “Velocity” declared a sighting of the ghost island in the year 1876. This was enough confirmation of its existence, and the knowledge of such was charted on maps for the next 100 years.

One of the earliest charts acknowledging the existence of Sandy Island.

Above is one of the earliest documented maps from the late 19th century depicting the location of Sandy Island. The skipper of the “Velocity” noted two unexpected traits after returning from their voyage through the Pacific. A series of ‘heavy breakers’ was the first, (referring to breaking waves) followed by a series of “Sandy Islets,” or Sandy Island. The island and the navigational hazard were both published in an Australian maritime directory in 1879 stating that:

“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.”

Making it appear as though getting to this island was a difficult feat.

Although, throughout its history, whether it was real or not was largely disputed. After a string of failed expeditions, the island was removed from some, but not all hydrographic charts by the 1970s. but Sandy Island remained on some maps that managed to creep onto the digital database, like the World Vector Shoreline Database which had been developed by the US Military. Not only this, but the island found its way onto maps provided by the National Geographic Society and Google Earth!

Google Earth's satellite image of Sandy Island.

It was not until October 2012 when a group of Australian scientists began researching the tectonic evolution of the eastern Coral Sea. This expedition was made on the RV Southern Surveyor which sailed through the area and discovered that there really was nothing at Sandy Island’s coordinates.

But there’s one problem, what was it that Cook and the sailors on the Velocity saw when they reporting sighting an island that didn’t exist?

After the story broke of Sandy Island’s “undiscovery,” many scientists double-checked data sources and accounts, wishing to learn how such an old mistake could have made it through into our digital age of incredible accuracy. And after extensive re-evaluation and the island’s removal from all remaining records, they uncovered an interesting phenomenon! After finding a study conducted in 2002 after the eruption of a volcano on the Tofua Arc off the coast of Tonga, which found that these eruptions caused the creation of pumice rafts.

A satellite image of a pumice raft floating through the ocean from Tonga. An image of Manhatten, New York City is shown for size reference.

A pumice raft is a large floating raft of pumice stone created by eruptions from underwater volcanoes. These rafts have been reported to be as big as 30 kilometres long and the study found that they would travel along the ocean’s surface currents. The pumice rafts in the study had originated in Tonga and had travelled over 3000 miles to wash up on the eastern Australian coasts.

When the scientists traced the currents’ paths in this study, they discovered that the pumice rafts would pass through the Coral Sea as closely as 20 kilometres from Sandy Island’s supposed location. So, our best bet is that the island never existed in the first place, and what these voyageurs really saw was a lost pumice raft they mistook for dry land in the exact same location 100 years apart.

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People! Just say Something!

Quirky Writing created by Artistic Creativity and the power of AI with the goal of learning something new every day!

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