A South Pacific island that ’s been on scientific charts for at least a decade — include Google Earth and Google Maps — has just been unexplored . Eager to check out “ Sandy Island ” for the first time , a radical of Australian scientist recently guess to the stain where it was supposed to be , and were instead greet by a vast surface area of the Coral Sea and over 1,400 meters ( 4,260 feet ) of sea depth .
According to various maps , let in some dating back to 2000 , the island was a ample comic strip of ground fix somewhere between Australia and New Caledonia — what would technically be French territory ( for what it ’s deserving ) .
“ We became fishy when the seafaring charts used by the ship showed a depth of 1,400 m in an country where our scientific maps and Google Earth showed the creation of a large island , ” said geologist Maria Seton when speaking to theSydney Morning Heraldafter her team ’s 25 - 24-hour interval voyage . “ Even onboard the ship , the weather maps the captain had showed an island in this location . ”
Seton has no idea how the supposed island made its path onto so many maps , but is planning to follow up and find out .
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Steven Micklethwaite from the University of Western Australia enounce , “ We all had a good giggle at Google as we sail through the island , then we started compose data about the seafloor , which we will send to the relevant authorities so that we can modify the cosmos mathematical function . ”
Mike Prince , the music director of charting services for the Australian Hydrographic Service , a department within the Navy that produces the rural area ’s official marine charts , said the world coastline database incorporate single reports that were sometimes old or contained errors .
“ We take anything off that database with a nip of salt , ” he said .
While some single-valued function Lord on purpose let in phantom street to deter right of first publication misdemeanor , that was not standard practice with nautical charts , said Mr Prince .
“ [ That would ] reduce confidence in what is actually right , ” he tell .
harmonise to a intersection manager at Google Maps for Australia and New Zealand , Google Earth confabulate a change of authoritative public and commercial-grade data point sources when collect its maps . But that said , he encouraged users to alarm Google to incorrect stallion using the ‘ Report a Problem ’ tool , found at the bottom good turning point of the map .
Noted .
simulacrum via Google .
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