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Phantom Island
A phantom island is a purported island which was included on maps for a period of time, but was later found not to exist. They usually originate from the reports of early sailors exploring new regions, and are commonly the result of navigational errors, mistaken observations, unverified misinformation, or deliberate fabrication. Some have remained on maps for centuries before being "un-discovered". Unlike lost lands, which are claimed (or known) to have once existed but to have been swallowed by the sea or otherwise destroyed, a phantom island is one that is claimed to exist contemporaneously, but later found not to have existed in the first place (or found not to be an island, as with the Island of California). Examples Some may have been purely mythical, such as the Isle of Demons near Newfoundland, which may have been based on local legends of a haunted island. The far-northern island of Thule was reported to exist by the 4th-century BC Greek explorer Pytheas, but in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banks Peninsula
Banks Peninsula () is a rocky peninsula on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand that was formed by two now-extinct volcanoes. It has an area of approximately . It includes two large deep-water harbours — Lyttelton Harbour and Akaroa Harbour — and many smaller bays and coves. The South Island's largest city, Christchurch, is immediately north of the peninsula which, is administered by Christchurch City Council. The main settlements are Lyttelton and Akaroa. The peninsula's economy is based on fisheries, farming and tourism. Māori were the first people to visit, and settle, the peninsula. The sparse population was reduced further following massacres by raiding parties of North Island Māori in 1830 and 1832. In 1770, explorer James Cook became the first European to sight the peninsula, which he mistook for an island, naming it after his ship's botanist Joseph Banks. From the 1830s, European whalers set up shore-based stations in some of the bays and harbo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New South Greenland
New South Greenland, sometimes known as Morrell's Land, was an appearance of land recorded by the American captain Benjamin Morrell of the schooner ''Wasp'' in , during a sealing and exploration voyage in the Weddell Sea area of Antarctica. Morrell provided precise coordinates and a description of a coastline which he claimed to have sailed along for more than . Because the Weddell Sea area was so little visited and hard to navigate due to ice conditions, the alleged land was never properly investigated before its existence was emphatically disproven during Antarctic expeditions in the early 20th century. At the time of Morrell's voyage, the geography of the then-unnamed Weddell Sea and its surrounding coasts was almost entirely unknown, making the claimed sighting initially plausible. However, obvious errors in Morrell's voyage account and his general reputation as a fabulist created scepticism about the existence of this new land. In , the German explorer Wilhelm Filchner sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weddell Sea
The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is the King Haakon VII Sea. Much of the southern part of the sea is covered by a permanent, massive ice shelf field, the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf. The sea is contained within the two overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of Argentine Antarctica, the British Antarctic Territory, and also resides partially within the Antártica Chilena Province, Antarctic Chilean Territory. At its widest the sea is around across, and its area is around . Various ice shelves, including the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, fringe the Weddell sea. Some of the ice shelves on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which formerly covered roughly of the Weddell Sea, had completely disappeared by 2002. The Weddel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pumice Raft
A pumice raft is a floating raft of pumice created by some eruptions of submarine volcanoes or coastal subaerial volcanoes. Pumice rafts have unique characteristics, such as the highest surface-area-to-volume ratio known for any rock type, long term flotation and beaching in the tidal zone, exposure to a variety of conditions, including dehydration, and an ability to absorb many potentially advantageous elements/compounds. For at least these reasons, astrobiologists have proposed pumice rafts as a possible ideal substrate for the Abiogenesis, origin of life. Biologists have suggested that animals and plants have Animal migration, migrated from island to island on pumice rafts. Notable examples Sandy Island, New Caledonia, Sandy Island, a phantom island, non-existent island near New Caledonia, was reported in 1876 by the whaling ship ''Velocity'' and subsequently included on some maps well into the 20th century. According to a team of University of Sydney scientists, it is possi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breaker (reef)
In fluid dynamics and nautical terminology, a breaking wave or breaker is a wave with enough energy to "break" at its peak, reaching a critical level at which linear energy transforms into wave turbulence energy with a distinct forward curve. At this point, simple physical models that describe wave dynamics often become invalid, particularly those that assume linear behaviour. The most generally familiar sort of breaking wave is the breaking of water surface waves on a coastline. Wave breaking generally occurs where the amplitude reaches the point that the crest of the wave actually overturns. Certain other effects in fluid dynamics have also been termed "breaking waves", partly by analogy with water surface waves. In meteorology, atmospheric gravity waves are said to break when the wave produces regions where the potential temperature decreases with height, leading to energy dissipation through convective instability; likewise, Rossby waves are said to break when the potenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eos (journal)
''Eos'' (formerly ''Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union'') is the news magazine published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The magazine publishes news and opinions relevant to the Earth and space sciences, as well as in-depth features on current research and on the relationship of geoscience to social and political questions. ''Eos'' is published online daily, and as an AGU member benefit in 11 issues a year. It accepts both display and classified advertising. History ''Transactions, American Geophysical Union'', began as a way to distribute information about AGU's annual meetings. Launched in 1920, the first volume was reprinted from volume 6, number 10 of the ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' as ''National Research Council Reprint and Circular Series'', number 11, and appeared under the title ''Scientific papers presented before the American Geophysical Union''. It compiled papers from AGU's second annual meeting. These transactions were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of the French Republic, a legal status unique in overseas France, and is enshrined in a dedicated chapter of the French Constitution. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre (New Caledonia), Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines (New Caledonia), Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea. French people, especially locals, call Grande Terre , a nickname also used more generally for the entire New Caledonia. Kanak people#Agitation for independence, Pro-independence Kanak parties use the name (''pron.'' ) to refer to New Caledonia, a term coined in the 1980s from the ethnic name of the indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chesterfield Islands
The Chesterfield Islands (''îles Chesterfield'' in French) are a French archipelago of New Caledonia located in the Coral Sea, northwest of Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. The archipelago is 120 km long and 70 km broad, made up of 11 uninhabited islets and many reefs. The land area of the islands is less than 10 km2. During periods of lowered sea level during the Pleistocene ice ages, an island of considerable size (Greater Chesterfield Island) occupied the location of the archipelago. Bellona Reef, 164 km south-southeast of Chesterfield, is geologically separated from the Chesterfield archipelago but commonly included. Etymology The reef complex is named after the whaling ship , commanded by Matthew Bowes Alt, which sailed through the Coral Sea in the 1790s. Location The Chesterfield Islands, sometimes referred to as the ''Chesterfield Reefs'' or ''Chesterfield Group'', are the most important of a number of uninhabited coral sand c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coral Sea
The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down the Australian northeast coast. Most of it is protected by the France, French Natural Park of the Coral Sea () and the Australian Coral Sea Marine Park. The sea was the location for the Battle of the Coral Sea, a major confrontation during World War II between the navies of the Empire of Japan, and the United States and Australia. The sea contains numerous islands and coral reef, reefs, as well as the world's largest reef system, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981. All previous oil exploration projects were terminated at the GBR in 1975, and fishing is restricted in many areas. The reefs and islands of the Coral Sea are particularly rich in birds and aquatic life and are a popular touris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandy Island, New Caledonia
Sandy Island (sometimes labelled in French , and in Spanish ) is a phantom island that was charted for over a century as being located near the French territory of New Caledonia between the Chesterfield Islands and Nereus Reef in the eastern Coral Sea. The island was included on many maps and nautical charts from as early as the late 19th century. It was removed from French hydrographic charts in 1974. The island gained wide media and public attention in November 2012 when the R/V ''Southern Surveyor'', an Australian research ship, passed through the area and "undiscovered" it. The island was quickly removed from many maps and data sets, including those of the National Geographic Society and Google Maps. History On 14–15 September 1774, Captain James Cook charted a "Sandy I." snaking between latitudes 19° and 20° S and longitudes 163°50′ and 164°15′ E off the tip of New Caledonia. The associated map, titled "Chart of Discoveries made in the So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. Lake Michigan–Huron has a larger combined surface area than Superior, but is normally considered two separate lakes. and the third-largest freshwater lake by volume, holding 10% of the fresh water in all of the world's rivers and lakes. Located in central North America, it is the northernmost and westernmost of the Great Lakes of North America, straddling the Canada–United States border with the Canadian province of Ontario to the north and east and the U.S. states of Minnesota to the west and Michigan and Wisconsin to the south. It drains into Lake Huron via St. Marys River, then through the lower Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean. Name The Ojibwe name for the lake is ''gichi-gami'' (in syllabics: , pronounced ''gitchi-gami'' or ''kitchi-gami'' in different dialects), meaning "great sea". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
