Phantom (Apocryphal; Transient) Islands

[EnolaGaia]

One of the unsuccessful attempts to re-locate Pagoda Rock is chronicled in Shaskleton's Last Voyage:

On this same day we reached the charted position of Pagoda Rock. It was first reported by Lieut. T. E. L. Moore, in the Pagoda, in 1845, in the following words :

In the afternoon of the same day (Thursday), January 30th, 1845, we fell in with a most singular rock,or rock on an iceberg. It appeared to be a mass of rock about 1,600 tons, and the top was covered with ice, and did not appear to have any visible motion, with a heavy sea beating over it. It had a tide mark round it.

We tried for soundings with 200 fathoms, and the first time we fancied we had struck the ground, but before we could try again we had drifted some distance off. We could not send a boat or beat the ship up against the breeze that was then blowing.

In our position, lat. 60° 11' S. and 4^ 47' E. long., however, there was no sign of it, though we made a traversing cruise, and a sounding which showed a depth, of 2,980 fathoms gave no indication of shoaling in the vicinity.

It is rather remarkable, however, that towards evening we sow a very curious-looking berg, very dark green in colour and heavily stained with some earthy material.

SOURCE: http://scans.library.utoronto.ca/pdf/3/16/shackletonslastv00wilduoft/shackletonslastv00wilduoft.pdf

 

[RaM]

Singleton Thorpe

This is not far from the new island that as formed off Fleetwood, there are also
some what appear to be ruins on the Knott End side of the river said to be a
Roman Harbor I have seen them from a boat but never been able to get close
to them due to tides.



http://www.wyrearchaeology.org.uk/index.php/areas-of-interest/singleton-thorpe

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Thanks for posting about Singleton Thorpe. The linked article draws on P. Whittle's 1831 book Marina, which interested me, as a native of Southport.

Delighted to find that the whole volume can be downloaded as a pdf from Google Books!

 

[EnolaGaia]

This National Geographic item is an overview of phantom islands that appeared on maps over recent centuries. It's an interview with Malachy Tallack, whose book on the subject - The Un-Discovered Islands - was cited here a year ago.

One of the examples cited - Phelipeaux Island in Lake Superior - doesn't seem to have been mentioned here on FTMB before.

This item includes a slide show of maps showing phantom / spurious islands.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/maps-undiscovered-fake-islands-cartography/

 

[gerhard1]

Here is a video of Bouvet taken from a helicopter.

The helicopter is from a research vessel, Russian, judging from the name.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Island forming off North Carolina coast. ...

Yep. The BBC covers this with no mention of The Bermuda Triangle:
New island forms on North Carolina's Atlantic coast
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40438209

Here's an update ... The sandbar / island is now gone.

Mysterious Sandbar Island That Formed Last Summer Is Gone Once Again
Blink and you'll miss it: A mysterious island that emerged off the coast of North Carolina overnight is gone once again, new satellite images reveal.

Shelly Island, a sandbar that appeared seemingly overnight off the coast of Cape Point on Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 2017, has disappeared again, due to a series of punishing storms that battered the coast and redistributed the sand off the shoreline. The new images, taken on Feb. 16, were captured by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite, which launched in 2013 as a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. ...

SOURCE: https://www.livescience.com/61964-north-carolina-sandbar-shelly-island-disappears.html

June 2017:

March 2018:

 

[gerhard1]

According to google, today is the 325th birthday of John Harrison. Harrison was the inventor of the marine chronometer which enabled navigators to precisely fix longitude.


A belated birthday wish to John Harrison.

 

[gerhard1]

Lately, I have been reading my Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe, and I am now in Poe's only novel, A Narrative of A Gordon Pym of Nantucket. In this story, Arthur Gordon Pym a young man seeking adventure, stows aboard a vessel headed for the southern Ocean, and is caught in the middle of a mutiny. He and his friend survive and with the help of one of the sailors, retakes the ship. The ship is soon foundering and is destroyed in a storm. Another ship sees them and takes them aboard, and the new ship takes them to where the Aurora Islands are supposed to be but the don't find any trace of them so they conclude they don't exist.

The ship continues south and finds further adventures and makes many discoveries, but I won't spoil it.

Anyway, I thought the mention of the Auroras was worth referring anyone who is interested to the story.

Perhaps my only real criticism of Poe is that he takes so long to get to the point. Once you figure out what the stories are about, they are interesting, but, like HP Lovecraft, he is very long-winded and probably loses many readers through excess and tiresome verbiage.

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Lately, I have been reading my Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe, and I am now in Poe's only novel, A Narrative of A Gordon Pym of Nantucket. In this story, Arthur Gordon Pym a young man seeking adventure, stows aboard a vessel headed for the southern Ocean, and is caught in the middle of a mutiny. He and his friend survive and with the help of one of the sailors, retakes the ship. The ship is soon foundering and is destroyed in a storm. Another ship sees them and takes them aboard, and the new ship takes them to where the Aurora Islands are supposed to be but the don't find any trace of them so they conclude they don't exist.

The ship continues south and finds further adventures and makes many discoveries, but I won't spoil it.

Anyway, I thought the mention of the Auroras was worth referring anyone who is interested to the story.

Perhaps my only real criticism of Poe is that he takes so long to get to the point. Once you figure out what the stories are about, they are interesting, but, like HP Lovecraft, he is very long-winded and probably loses many readers through excess and tiresome verbiage.

Some people love that about Lovecraft, I like to read him by candlelight when it's dark and stormy outside sitting by a crackling fire, shadows dancing across the walls. In the distance the sea can be heard crashing against the rocks. I turn the next page of "The Shadow over Innsmouth"....

The the wife comes in switches the lights on and starts watching American Idol on the telly.

Mind you the contestants and panel of those shows sure beat Lovecraft for 'Cosmic Horror".

 

[gerhard1]

Some people love that about Lovecraft, I like to read him by candlelight when it's dark and stormy outside sitting by a crackling fire, shadows dancing across the walls. In the distance the sea can be heard crashing against the rocks. I turn the next page of "The Shadow over Innsmouth"....

The the wife comes in switches the lights on and starts watching American Idol on the telly.

Mind you the contestants and panel of those shows sure beat Lovecraft for 'Cosmic Horror".

Please satisfy my curiosity, if you would. Have you read the Pym story by Poe? I am about two-thirds of the way through it now and will likely finish it tonight in bed.

My two favorite Lovecraft stories are The Dunwich Horror, and The Call of Cthulhu. I have got to get back to the story I am letting sit dormant that has been influenced by the Cthulhu mythos. Come to think of it, I have a number of stories I'm working on, and I might get hit by a car or something and not finish them. What a blow to literature that would be!!

 

[Krepostnoi]

The fascinating tale of Ravenserodd: an island that emerged off Spurn Point in early medieval times, becoming amongst other things a hotbed of piracy preying on the delicate souls of Grimsby. This displeased the Almighty (according to contemporary chroniclers, at any rate) and so the island was doomed to return whence it had come. Article also contains implicit advice not to invest in coastal property along the southern Yorkshire riviera.

A team from the University of Hull seems to think that they may have identified the location of the lost town. It will be interesting to learn if they are correct.

 

[maximus otter]

A team from the University of Hull seems to think that they may have identified the location of the lost town. It will be interesting to learn if they are correct.

Fascinating.

lt’ll also be fascinating to see how any telly documentary deals with an inconvenient truth: that the sea was chomping away at our coast 650 years before l bought our small family car.

maximus otter

 

[ramonmercado]

Fascinating.

lt’ll also be fascinating to see how any telly documentary deals with an inconvenient truth: that the sea was chomping away at our coast 650 years before l bought our small family car.

maximus otter

Get an amphibious car just to be on the safe side.

 

[Kondoru]

Hallsands, Devon. Said to be destroyed by coastal erosion due to offshore aggregate dredging.

That's the official story.

The local history group point to several beachfront communities who have suffered the same fate over the last thousand years...

One must be careful where you buy a place in Start Bay, methinks.

 

[gerhard1]

This is a somewhat fanciful video, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

 

[Coal]

Hallsands, Devon. Said to be destroyed by coastal erosion due to offshore aggregate dredging.

Arthur Applin in the 'Philandering Angler' describes Hallsands at the turn of the 19th century while it was yet a working village. In particualr the description of the the perilous landing of the fishing boats lives long in the memory. The women of the village would scoop a large hollow in the stones on the beach and time dragging the boat into it with the waves. He also describes how the 'head man' of the evillage would read the newpapers to the rest.

This:

 

[EnolaGaia]

A sandbar that's been forming off the New Jersey shore has burgeoned into a 100-acre island with its own name and an off-limits designation to reserve it for nesting birds.

A new island emerges at the Jersey Shore, and boaters are angry it’s been closed to protect birds

Something remarkable has happened over the last few years off the coast near Brigantine: A sandbar, or shoal, has emerged into what wildlife officials are calling a 100-acre island complete with lagoon that already is “one of the most critically important areas for birds” in New Jersey.

Officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched a plan this year to manage what they’ve named Horseshoe Island and close it to the public from March 1 to Sept. 30, when nesting is over, for the next five years. The island is about 1,200 feet offshore, just south of Little Egg Inlet off what’s known as Little Beach Islands near Brigantine.

“I don’t think we’re saying it’s going to be permanent, but it’s evolved to where it’s an island now,” said Todd Pover, a senior biologist with the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey. “We’re being told by experts it could last a number of years. We certainly don’t have anything like it anywhere else in New Jersey.” ...

The island, off Little Egg Inlet, now shows up on Google Earth satellite images. And officials say it survived last weekend’s battering nor’easter.

The management plan says Horseshoe Island, so named for its shape, provides habitat for a number of species, including 470 endangered least terns, making it the largest colony of the species in the state. ...

Sand from beach replenishment projects totaling 21 million cubic yards along Long Island Beach, as well as dredging projects, likely drifted south to form the platform shoal that became Horseshoe Island. Wildlife officials say it wasn’t until spring 2018 that the shoal started remaining intact through all tides, leading to the idea it is at least semipermanent.

It’s likely birds started to make homes on the island in 2020, but no one was monitoring because of the pandemic. However, by 2021 biologists confirmed that birds were breeding there and remained until nesting was finished in September. And vegetation has started to grow, officials said. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.inquirer.com/news/briga...nd-conservation-migrating-birds-20220513.html

 

[maximus otter]

A New Island Has Arisen in The Pacific Following Underwater Eruption​

A submerged volcano on the seamount known as the Home Reef in the central Tonga Islands has awoken after 16 years of deep sleep to poke its head out of the blue.

On 10 September 2022, lava and rock fragments began to ooze into the ocean 25 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Late Island, while plumes of steam and ash burst through the surface of the waves.

Slowly the debris gathered into a whole new island, covering 4,000 square meters (one acre) and reaching a height of 10 meters (33 feet) within a few days.

Though it would barely grow much taller, on September 20 officials from the Tonga Geological Services (TGS) announced that the island had swelled six times in size, expanding to 24,000 square meters.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this ephemeral, unnamed structure will probably sink back down into the Pacific Ocean's burning 'Ring of Fire' long before any seafarer might hope to set foot on its rocky shore.

The last time Home Reef gave birth to a new island, in 2006, it took a year for the ocean's waves to erode its crest. This time, the crest is much shorter.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-new-island-has-arisen-in-the-pacific-following-underwater-eruption

maximus otter

 

[ramonmercado]

This may be an example of something that could easily have spawned phantom island sightings in past centuries.

A volcanic island in Tonga emerged 3 years ago, but wasn't expected to last very long. It's managed to persist beyond original expectations, and its probable lifespan is now estimated to be somewhere between 6 and 30 years.

In past centuries 6 to 30 years would have been a virtual eye-blink between explorer visits in the more remote parts of the oceans.



FULL STORY: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-that-rose-from-the-ashes-might-last-30-years

NASA REPORT (cited herein): https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddar...nd-made-of-tuff-stuff-likely-to-persist-years

Another report about Hunga Tonga.

When a new island arose from the South Pacific in 2015, it created an unprecedented opportunity not just for geologists and volcanologists, but for biologists and ecologists, too.

The appearance of a new island offers a chance to learn about how ecosystems begin, starting with microbial pioneers that colonize new land like this, before plants or animals show up.

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai island (Hunga Tonga) didn't stick around for very long – after it was formed by a volcanic eruption in 2015, it was destroyed by another eruption in early 2022. During the seven years it existed, however, the island revealed some interesting secrets.

In a new study, researchers report evidence of an unexpected community of microbes on the island that metabolize sulfur and atmospheric gases, similar to organisms that occupy very different habitats: hot springs or deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

"We didn't see what we were expecting," says microbial ecologist Nick Dragone from the University of Colorado. "We thought we'd see organisms you find when a glacier retreats, or cyanobacteria, more typical early colonizer species – but instead we found a unique group of bacteria that metabolize sulfur and atmospheric gases."

Dragone and fellow researchers collected 32 soil samples from the island, on surfaces ranging from sea level up to the crater summit, about 120 meters (394 ft) high. They then extracted and sequenced DNA from the samples. ...

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-island-appeared-out-of-nowhere-with-life-forms-never-seen-before

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Arthur Applin in the 'Philandering Angler' describes Hallsands at the turn of the 19th century while it was yet a working village. In particualr the description of the the perilous landing of the fishing boats lives long in the memory. The women of the village would scoop a large hollow in the stones on the beach and time dragging the boat into it with the waves. He also describes how the 'head man' of the evillage would read the newpapers to the rest.

This:

View attachment 55101

Back in my early teens in the 80s I took part in a residential school trip staying at Slapton. On the second day we walked past the remnants of this village and learnt about what happened on the otherwise ruggedly beautiful peninsular. The Pig's Nose pub is definitely worth a visit

 

[gordonrutter]

Back in my early teens in the 80s I took part in a residential school trip staying at Slapton. On the second day we walked past the remnants of this village and learnt about what happened on the otherwise ruggedly beautiful peninsular. The Pig's Nose pub is definitely worth a visit

Slapton Ley Field Centre as run by the Field Studies Council presumably?

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Slapton Ley Field Centre as run by the Field Studies Council presumably?

Yes

The whole area was occupied by the Americans prior to D-day, with farmers and other inhabitants evacuated from their homes. There then followed a disastrous D-Day rehearsal exercise that cost almost a thousand US lives after German torpedo boats chanced upon the landing craft:

https://www.submerged.co.uk/slapton/

Ken Small who discovered the truth behind the forgotten/hushed-up disaster is almost certainly the man who was a regular in the Barnstaple hotel bar I got to know when I was working there in my late teens. He told me how as a child he had lived in Widecombe in the Moor on Dartmoor. One day soon after the disaster occurred a US Army convoy passed through the village and got stuck in traffic (narrow lanes banked with granite). With some other boys he ran to the back of one truck and lifted the tarpaulin, expecting to find soldiers who would give them chocolate or other gifts. Instead they were faced with the piled-up bodies of drowned US servicemen, off to be buried in unmarked graves. He also showed me a letter from a US Congressman whom he was in touch with.

 

[Cochise]

Wandering a bit off topic, but part of the reason for the Slapton Sands disaster was that due to a sequence of misunderstandings the Royal Navy escort that should have been protecting the exercise was absent.

Which made it even more embarrassing and made it doubly important to keep the news away from the lower echelons. Had news got out the last thing that would have been needed at that time was distrust breaking out between the US Navy/US Army and the RN.