Is it possible for ancient undiscovered islands to exists on earth?

score:4

Accepted answer

Old undiscovered islands is possible, but unlikely, given we have satellite imagery of the earth down to very high resolution detail.

However, there are plenty of examples of mistakes being made, and some islands that we 'know about' may not even exist. As recently as 2012, an island was found not to exist despite being on historical maps for 150 years, and even on Google Maps!

Then, volcanoes are creating new islands every so often with eruptions. Just a few months ago, a new one was created in the Pacific Ocean, south of Japan. This is fairly common for smaller ones to be made, but they don't often last long, so this was special. But given that scientist monitor eruptions and study them, it's pretty common to discover the new formations rather quickly.

Similarly a few years ago, a giant pumice island was formed (although technically more of a 'raft' of pumice) after some eruptions and earthquakes.

So, short answer - it's possible, but unlikely for old ones to exist, and while new ones are created occasionally, we usually find them pretty fast. Of course, this doesn't mean we've explored them, just photographed/mapped them.

More post

Search Posts

Related post