Pumice raft

Notable examples

Sandy Island, a 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 possible that this false report may have been occasioned by pumice rafts being mistaken by the Velocity for dry land.

20th century and onward

Pumice rafts drifted to Fiji in 1979 and 1984 from eruptions around Tonga, and some were reportedly 30 km wide.

Volcanic activity in the South Pacific near Tonga on August 12, 2006 caused the emergence of a new island. The crew of the Maiken, a yacht that had left the northern Tongan islands group of Vava'u in August, reported that they had seen streaks of light, porous pumice stone floating in the water—and then had "sailed into a vast, many-miles-wide belt of densely packed pumice". They went on to witness the ephemeral island known as Home Reef breaching the surface.

A very large pumice raft appeared near New Zealand in August 2012. It was reported to be spread on an area 300 mi long and about 30 mi wide, with pumice blocks poking up to 2 ft above the ocean surface. On 10 August 2012 the raft with an estimated area of 26000 km2 was observed near Raoul Island, north-east of New Zealand by the Royal New Zealand Navy. A possible source for the pumice was the July 2012 eruption of Havre seamount in the Kermadec Islands north of New Zealand.

In August 2019, a large floating pumice raft covering 150 km2 was discovered in the tropical Pacific Ocean near Late Island in the Kingdom of Tonga. Sailors described a "rubble slick made up of rocks from marble to basketball size such that water was not visible", as well as a smell of sulfur.

References

References

1. Martin D. Brasier, Richard Matthewman, Sean McMahon and David Wacey. "Pumice as a Remarkable Substrate for the Origin of Life" Astrobiology. August 31, 2011
2. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090419034704/http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=17605 New Island and Pumice Raft, Tonga], NASA Earth Observatory photo with commentary, August 2006
3. Nunn, Patrick D.. (2008). "Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific". University of Hawai'i Press.
4. (9 April 2013). "Obituary: Sandy Island (1876 –2012)". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union.
5. Joel Achenbach. (April 4, 2013). "Scientist unravels mystery of Coral Sea's ghostly Sandy Island". Washington Post.
6. (2006-08-17). "Stone sea and volcano". [[Blogger (service).
7. [http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=17610 New Island and Pumice Raft, Tonga], NASA Earth Observatory photo with commentary, November 2006
8. Space.com, [http://www.space.com/17102-pumice-raft-pacific-volcano-source.html "Source of Mysterious Pumice 'Raft' in Pacific Found, NASA Says"], Jeanna Bryner, 14 August 2012
9. (10 August 2012). "Vast volcanic 'raft' found in Pacific, near New Zealand". BBC News.
10. (10 August 2012). "Pumice raft bigger than area of Israel". The Australian.
11. (11 August 2012). "'Weirdest thing' floats in South Pacific - CNN.com". CNN.
12. (13 August 2019). "A Raft of Rock". NASA.
13. (26 August 2019). "Vast 'pumice raft' found drifting through Pacific Ocean". BBC.