<
https://theconversation.com/ghost-islands-of-the-arctic-the-worlds-northern-most-island-isnt-the-first-to-be-erased-from-the-map-189946>
"In 2021, an expedition off the icy northern Greenland coast spotted what
appeared to be a previously uncharted island. It was small and gravelly, and it
was declared a contender for the title of the most northerly known land mass in
the world. The discoverers named it Qeqertaq Avannarleq – Greenlandic for “the
northern most island.”
But there was a mystery afoot in the region. Just north of Cape Morris Jesup,
several other small islands had been discovered over the decades, and then
disappeared.
Some scientists theorized that these were rocky banks that had been pushed up
by sea ice.
But when a team of Swiss and Danish surveyors traveled north to investigate
this “ghost islands” phenomenon, they discovered something else entirely. They
announced their findings in September 2022: These elusive islands are actually
large icebergs grounded at the sea bottom. They likely came from a nearby
glacier, where other newly calved icebergs, covered with gravel from
landslides, were ready to float off.
This was not the first such disappearing act in the high Arctic, or the first
need to erase land from the map. Nearly a century ago, an innovative airborne
expedition redrew the maps of large swaths of the Barents Sea."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
