Sandy Island, a sizeable landmass displayed on marine charts, world maps, Google Earth and Google Maps is supposedly halfway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia. Yet when scientists from the University of Sydney went to identify the island, Sandy was nowhere to be found. Scientist Maria Selton was aboard the ship and spoke to BBC about the invisible island, saying:
“We wanted to check it out because the navigation charts on board the ship showed a water depth of 1,400m in that area – very deep. It’s on Google Earth and other maps so we went to check and there was no island. We’re really puzzled. It’s quite bizarre. How did it find its way onto the maps? We just don’t know, but we plan to follow up and find out.”
While some map makers include phantom streets in order to prevent copyright infringment, a spokesperson from Australia’s Hydrographic Service, which produces the country’s nautical charts, claims this is not the case with nautical charts because it would reduce confidence in them. Google has added that the company combines a variety of authoritative sources when creating their maps. A Google spokesperson went on to say, “The world is a constantly changing place, and keeping on top of these changes is a never-ending endeavour.”
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Claudia McNeilly writes for the Toronto Standard. You can follow her on twitter at @claudiamcneilly
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