South Pacific Sandy Island 'proven not to exist'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20442487

by glennwiz • 14 years ago

71 46 14 years ago

bbc.co.uk

nsns• 14 years ago

"It's on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island." (Scientists)

"The world is a constantly changing place, and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavour." (Google spokesperson)

"...though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does make the reassuring claim that where it is inaccurate, it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it was always reality that's got it wrong." (Douglas Adams)

sbirchall3• 14 years ago

Isn't this a standard method for a 'poor-mans copywrite' in cartography?

ManAboutCouch• 14 years ago

The creation of so called 'Trap Streets' is well known - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Copyright_Easter_Eggs

However putting a non-existent island on a Marine chart used for navigation is a few steps above that. It looks like it's the result of a mistake, a mistake that was copied far and wide.

sbirchall3• 14 years ago

Yeah, that's the ticket... guess I wasn't thinking about the requirements for using said charts for effective navigation. I was just wondering if this would precipitate infringement claims once the point of origin is identified. As in it's an accidental "Trap Island" but it's caught some rubes nonetheless...

solarexplorer• 14 years ago

Except that it never appeared on the official australian and french maps. If you use Google Maps instead of an official navigation chart for navigation, you probably don't deserve better...

heyitsnick• 14 years ago

That was my first thought, although i'm not sure why you refer to them as 'poor-mans copyright', seems like a pretty smart way of adding an additional layer of protection in cases of plagiarism dispute.

These are also referred to as mountweasel's or 'nihil articles' (http://www.omniglot.com/blog/?p=6187) and turn up in dictionaries, maps, charts and other reference works.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_entry for a long list, including fictitious german politician Jakob Maria Mierscheid in most official parliamentary listings.

sbirchall3• 14 years ago

> although i'm not sure why you refer to them as 'poor-mans copyright'

just a misunderstanding, I was searching my brain for the phrases you mention and out popped 'poor mans copyright'[1]. You are indeed correct this is a totally different thing and "Mountweasels" (fictitious artifacts) are a very sound method of establishing the originality of certain work... I have to wonder if "Mountweasels" hasn't krept into our language in just such a manner though!

[1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_man%27s_copyright]

mistercow• 14 years ago

"A spokesman from the service told Australian newspapers that while some map makers intentionally include phantom streets to prevent copyright infringements, that was was not usually the case with nautical charts because it would reduce confidence in them."

NelsonMinar• 14 years ago

Amazing what you learn if you read the article.

derleth• 14 years ago

> copywrite

'Copyright', as it governs the right to copy.

yuokool12• 14 years ago

What happens if you zoom in on the island using google maps?

TillE• 14 years ago

It's the same black blob. As usual, there's no higher-resolution data for small remote islands.

Though if it weren't labeled as "Sandy Island", I would think it's just an artifact of some kind. It certainly doesn't look like any real island at that distance.

http://goo.gl/maps/NUWhA

paulgb• 14 years ago

I assume it's blacked out because their geospatial data shows that it's land but they don't have satellite data to cover it.

andyjohnson03• 14 years ago

I wonder if, at some time in the past, some cartographer examining a satellite image saw something that looked like a long sandy island and labelled it "sandy island" as a provisional description rather than a name, intending to get back to it. But they never did, and the description became a name.

andyjohnson03• 14 years ago

The island now has a wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Island_(New_Caledonia). Created today.

personlurking2• 14 years ago

I'm waiting to hear that an airliner disappeared over the 'island' and the crew and passengers are now Lost.

In seriousness, I'm wondering why the trip took 25 days. Flying over the area would likely be more (of) a reasonable option.

dagw• 14 years ago

Flying over the area would likely be more a reasonable option

Unless you actually wanted to sail around the south pacific for a month and be able to call it "work"

personlurking2• 14 years ago

"I see", said the blind man to his deaf wife. Especially true if you've seen BBC's South Pacific (...several times over).

Intro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3gtTicceg0 BBC Two http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jq11g

______

Edit: The initial "nonsense verse" I used made me curious so I looked it up and that's where I found the ending of one version of the phrase.

"I see", said the blind man to his deaf wife as their dog with no legs got up and ran away. He pissed in the wind and said "It all comes back to me now."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense_verse

aes256• 14 years ago

Guessing they were also systematically measuring the depth of the ocean around the area, as they make reference to it being "deep ocean".

In other words, they were seeking to establish that it's not an island that once existed and has been submerged due to rising sea levels, it flat-out never existed.

Not sure if it's possible (or at least, best practice) to do that from an airplane?

dalke• 14 years ago

Sea levels haven't risen all that much - 8 inches in the last 150 years says one reference. There are other options which are more probable. If it was a volcanic island then the top could be easily eroded. Consider the island of Ferdinandea, off the coast of Italy. "At its maximum (in July and August 1831), it was 4,800 m (15,700 ft) in circumference and 63 m (207 ft) in height." while by January 1832 it had eroded to below sea level. Surtsey is another example, this off the coast of Iceland, and Kavachi is a third, this in the Solomon Islands.

If this were the case then depth soundings would easily identify a submerged volcano, even if it were 100m below the surface. A simple visual fly-by wouldn't.

rmc3• 14 years ago

In other words, they were seeking to establish that it's not an island that once existed and has been submerged due to rising sea levels, it flat-out never existed.

Or, y'know go out there to map the place to get better and more accurate maps.

If it has an island that isn't there, it's not a good sign that your maps of the area are accurate.

SuperChihuahua• 14 years ago

1. Elon Musk launches rockets from the area and talks about the mysterious Hyperloop

2. Islands begin to disappear

Conclusions?

krapp• 14 years ago

You know too much.

elchief• 14 years ago

Nice knowing you [Deleted]

cafard• 14 years ago

In Samuel Eliot Morison's _The European Discovery of America_, he has an early chapter on "Flyaway Islands and False Voyages". He remarks on how long some of these lasted on the charts, after regular shipping routes went past or "over" them. Of course, navigation was less precise in the days before Loran and then GPS.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

    Sandy Island
    Get Deals & Reviews for Hotels near Sandy Island
    www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionHotels

Ah, how I hate you dynamic ads...

gonzo• 14 years ago

Insert Apple maps joke here

discountgenius• 14 years ago

"...some map makers intentionally include phantom streets to prevent copyright infringements..."

Wait, what?

chollida1• 14 years ago

It's a very common thing to put a made up one way street into the map. If your competitor has the same street then it's pretty easy to tell they are "using" your map data.

Cisco allegedly did something similar when it suspected Huwei was usign it's source code. They added some minor typos to error messages and then check the Huawei routers and sure enough they had the same mis-spellings.

Since no one programs against the textual strings of the error messages, they jumped to the conclusion it was source code theft and not a clean room implementation that Huawei was using

wyclif• 14 years ago

Land surveyor and cartographer here. I just came by to say that while "traps" are common on land maps, in nautical cartography they are not. I don't understand why anybody would reasonably surmise that this is a "trap island" since marine cartographers do not use them.

rmc3• 14 years ago

It doesn't prevent copyright infringement, so much as be able to detect copyright infringment after the fact. They are called 'trap streets'. They aren't just streets, but kinks in roads or rivers, churchs that aren't there.

This way, if someone copies your map, you can prove they copied you. If your map was totally accurate, then they (the copier) could claim that they went out into the world and surveyed it. If they include your trap street that only exists on your map, and not reality, then it must be a copy.

esrauch• 14 years ago

Its actually more devious than that. Facts are not copyrightable since they are not creative works; locations of streets and phone number listings are both not copyrightable. On the other hand, fictional streets or phone numbers are copyrightable so if someone copies a trap street they are infringing when they otherwise wouldn't be if the map was accurate.

pilsetnieks• 14 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street

grecy2• 14 years ago

Yup.

Melway is a company that makes excellent street directories for all the major cities in Australia.[1] It came out a while ago that on every single page, there are intentional errors that would help catch someone copying their maps. There was a phone box marked on my street that didn't exist, and a friend's house was next to a street that didn't exist.

It gained some attention a while back because it could turn into a safety issue - i.e. I rely on the map to tell me where I can find a phone box to call emergency services. They downplayed it.

[1]http://www.melway.com.au/

quink2• 14 years ago

It's entirely likely that it's just outdated data. However, it's not so much a part of a trend of disappearing phone booths, TUSMA is providing government money to Telstra for keeping about 20,000 phone booths active such that all Australians have reasonable access to one.

greenyoda• 14 years ago

There are apparently many other "phantom islands": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_island

ghshephard• 14 years ago

Interesting to note - while the adjoining areas are well covered by Apple Maps, they don't have a marker for "sandy island" in that spot of ocean - so clearly using a different source.

South Pacific Sandy Island 'proven not to exist'

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