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Science

Researchers Witness Birth Of Volcanic Island 63

Posted by timothy from the I-get-dibs-on-real-estate! dept.
chazR writes: "Researchers from CSIRO were present at the creation of a new volcanic island Once the molten lava stops being thrown 70m into the air, I reckon this would make an ideal offshore site for a server farm. Who's going to hassle you on top of a volcano miles from the nearest land. Getting the OC-192 link in could be a problem though ... " Well, that's only if Australia (not me) actually has dibs on the real estate.
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New volcanic island More

New volcanic island

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  • Re:Stupid news anchors (Score:3)

    by LocutusMIT ( 10726 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @10:41PM (#1049737) Homepage
    Seamount islands usually form at about two metres below the surface if they're in the midocean. At that depth, they will be completely underwater all the time (assuming normal wave activity), and will be kept that way by the sea.

    The early phases of island-building are phreatomagmatic, as the magma reacts with low-pressure water near the surface. Such eruptions are extremely violent, and don't produce very stable land. Wave action keeps the new island just under the surface.

    After the island is large enough to slow wave activity, a ring of tuff usually forms as tephra is deposited by base surges and fallout. This protects the island from the rest of the waves.

    Finally, when the vent has little direct contact with the water, the eruption will shift to effusive (Hawaiian style), firmly cementing the loose earth into a stable island.

    The same thing happened with the formation of Surtsey [south.is], near Iceland, in the 1960s.


    - Ricky

    "But close by Etna
    thunders and its affrighting
    showers fall. Sometimes it ejects up to
    high heaven a cloud of utter black, bursting
    forth in a tornado of pitchy smoke
    with white hot lava, and
    shoots tongues of flame
    to lick the stars."
    - Virgil, The Aneid

  • The news isn't about getting the facts, it's about getting attention (advertising == money)!

    --

  • Re:This is a significant evolutionary event! (Score:3)

    by D Fens ( 170157 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @10:46PM (#1049739)

    Back in 1963 an island called Surtsey [south.is] erupted near Iceland. It was pretty large, and was closely studied for geological and bilogical purposes.

    There is at least one book [amazon.com] published on the subject. No, I am not shilling(TM) for Orinoco.



  • I shall continue to post links to the strip, so look for me in future discussions!

    Anonymous Coward: Ask for it by name!


  • How do you claim a national sovereignty? There exists actually no procedures foe claiming a new nation. If you look to the history you find only ad hoc recognition of new national independency, not even when new land is found. To liberate the United States of America from the English Crown, it was nesassery to fight a war, because the common practice was (and is) that new land is claimed by the jurisdiction of the nation to which the discoverer belongs.

    What normally happens when new states are recognised, is that a ethnic fraction of an existing country has fought for and won a piece of land and has been able to maintain for a while. Then some other countries start to recognise its existance and deal with this new situation. When it has been like this for a while, they get a seat in UN and a toplevel domain and other priviledges.

    But the question is: If nobody before has claim the island, it is not within the 200 nt. mile zone of territory, and the one who has discovered the island want to declare it as a nation, how should he apply to UN for recognition? Under which premises will he get it and how can he avoid the jurisdiction of his nationality overrules his claim?

    That makes me wonder...

  • Well, what sort of idiot can't see *sarcasm* when it smacks him in the face? You need to get out more often, dude.
  • Perhaps what we are witnessing is the manifestation of Bill Gates' geekness, plan to dominate the world with crappy software and his secret sexual infatuation with Mr. Bigglesworth!! I'll bet any of you that by the end of this year, that new island looks like a Giant Bill Gates Head (tm). Sad thing is, he'll point his evil laser at Washington and he'll zap himself in the ass because of a security worm hole in Outlook. Then his stock will drop 3 points.
  • What with brokering the Tuvala deal, the antarctica .aq deal, and what I made during the break up of Czechoslavakia, I can almost buy myselph some Top Ramem.

  • Putting a server on that island would require a pretty long ethernet cord... I suspect the nearest hub would be pretty far away.

  • Environmental damage (Score:3)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Thursday May 25, 2000 @05:06AM (#1049746) Homepage
    spewing molten lava, plumes of sulpherous smoke - geez, if this were people working in a manufacturing plant they'd be elbow deep in environmental lawsuits and under orders to restore everything back to the way it was.

    As someone's sig says, "stop plate tectonics!"
  • John Courtney Grimwood addressed this problem in a book of his (can't remember which) where the heroine sets off to recreate Venice in the middle of the Pacific using a series of old boats and some quick growing coral...

    I thought about this before (she uses nV as a trade/data haven) and have seen a number of candidates. An article in FHM in the UK had a list of 'cool' things to buy. One of these was an old lighthouse on its own island off the coast of the UK. Another was an oil rig (going for £10 but you had to decommision it).

    The problem is gaining recognition... No war needs to be fought if you just wander onto unowned land. I think an easier option would be to have a chat with a third world government, say the Mauritius, and just turn their economy into an Information based one.

    Anyone with the right connections, a shedfull of cash and the means of getting a data haven set up could approach a poor country and offer aid/work/development in exchange for rights and a favourable market place i.e. free market telco, fibre lines, limited tax for IT based business etc.

    Anyone want to follow that up (see Ian Banks 'The Business' for details)

    Icarus

  • Claiming (or) building islands to start new countries has been done a bunch of times in the past - famous examples include the Republic of Minerva, which I think is detailed in the Loompanics book someone mentioned. I was looking at this stuff for fun recently - some entertaining links about independence and micronation movements include: Footnotes to History [gravy.net], this Micronations Page [execpc.com], and Homelands [visi.com] - many more exist (sites and pages, not successful micronations unfortunately); it's a popular libertarian topic.

  • This has happened before... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If my memory serves me, I believe this sort of event has been chronicled before. The Romans were believed to have noted the formation of what is interpreted as a volcanic island, which was christened "The isle of Davidius," after a famous architect of the time. It was a shortlived time cycle, and soon disappeared back into the ocean, but the duration is not too specific regarding this. The above was chronicled in early period documentation by a scribe local to the area known as Bryanius. Has anyone else read anything further in this area?
  • I don't think this place is going to belong to the Aussies... According to the BBC article on the subject [bbc.co.uk], the island is about 20 miles from the Solomon Islands [encyclopedia.com]. Based on this, I'm guessing that the island is in their territorial waters, and so they'll be claiming the island (in most parts of the world, a country's territorial waters extend for 200 miles). I don't think we'll be seeing a macdonald's on there for a little while though.

    For those of you that really, really want to buy an island, and that still have a little money after all the linux stocks jumped and dived, you might want to check out these people [vladi.de]. The guy that runs this place is the agent for most of the inhabitable islands in the world, and he has some (ahem) real bargains!
  • What will be the first species to inhabit the new island? ($50 says its spiders!)

    I don't think so: spiders are predators (they eat insects), their food has to inhabit the island before them.

  • Maybe NBC should get on the ball and send Matt Lauer there.... Geez.
  • The Kavachi volcano formed the Kavachi seamount, and so probably when it breaks the surface of the water it'll be known as the Kavachi island.
  • ... It must be R'leyh! Start the gibbering now!

    --
    These are *MY* opinions.
  • Dibs on the gas!
  • If this island gets big enough we should give it to the people of Bikini Atoll. We nuked their island really well in the 1950's and as a result, those people have been displace from their home for all that time.

    Check out the website here [bikiniatoll.com]

  • Granted, it might be water cooled, but how big a cooling fan/pump are you going to need for this beastie?
    --
  • ... a Beowulf cluster of these?

    One might call it an archipelago.

  • Hmmm (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @10:16PM (#1049760)
    Slashdotted island indeed - if this picture [malign.net] is any indication. Personally, I don't think it was an island - I think it's a coverup: Microsoft has finally entered the arms race. You'll note yesterday's quote that they would (I paraphrase here): "not stand by while our commercial enterprise is destroyed". We all know what happened when Microsoft programmed Encarta to show the world spinning backwards: they rewrote the astronomy section.
  • Mmmm, I like it, but I suspect there may be scalability and robustness problems. As I understand it the island is about the size of a cubicle and its primary resource is rock. Now, if it was caffeinated rock I wouldn't have a problem ...
  • How often does a new landmass spring up before the eyes of a group of scientists??? This will be an observational testbed for the theories of Darwin and all evolutionary scientists. What will be the first species to inhabit the new island? ($50 says its spiders!)

    How will this new ecosystem evolve and adapt?

    This is a perfect system to observe natural selection in action (or not)!!

    Let the experiment begin!

    ps. I hope the volcano dosen't drag on with the fire and brimstone crap for too long. It would suck to have an enless series of news stories about how the latest fauna were wiped out in the most recent erruption...somehow I think its inevitable.
  • TransportNode X/40 SDH Radio [nortelnetworks.com]

    at 310Mbps that's not bad... Although i'm not quite sure the distance of these things neither how far the island is, but this is just cool *G*

    M'eh, i'm just trying to get PIPE for my server out here in the Rookies... (DualPiii@750, 382MB ECC, Two 9.1Ultra160 LVD SCSI HD, G400 32MB Dual-head)

    --
    Jesse Tie Ten Quee - tie@linux.ca - highos@highos.com
    http://highos.dhs.org

  • Re:This is a significant evolutionary event! (Score:5)

    by Dervak ( 94063 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @11:24PM (#1049764)

    How often does a new landmass spring up before the eyes of a group of scientists???

    I cant recall the exact figure, but new volcanic islands forming isnt that rare; once or twice a decade or so - perhaps more often still. It is rare that it happens in front of people though. Mostly it happens in uninhabited places, like e.g. in the Aleutians or off New Guineas shore.

    Most of these new volcanic islands dont last though. The volcanic rock formed by the sudden cooling of magma by seawater in shallow water is brittle and easily eroded, and sea waves usually obliterate the new islands within months of the end of the eruption.

    It is only when the eruption is large or long enough that the vent comes completely clear of seawater. Then the magma can solidify into a harder, more solid shield protecting the looser material below from erosion. If this happens the island should last for many decades at least, with no renewed activity. Surtsey in Iceland in 1963 is an example of this, and IIRC the only new volcanic island formed in the 20th century which still exists.

    If the island lasts long enough (a few decades) the loose material (tephra) made from the phreatomagmatic (explosive activity from interaction of magma and water) activity early in the eruption undergoes a chemical transition and becomes hyaloclastite, a rock even harder than the overlying shield of lava. So, after a long time with no activity, when the lava shield is eroded away, the former soft core of the island remains as steep pillars, cliffs and seamounts.

    /Dervak

  • hmmm.... new island (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is there a domain created jet ??????

  • Video on ABC (Score:3)

    by Joe Rumsey ( 2194 ) on Thursday May 25, 2000 @12:03AM (#1049766)
    ABC [abcnews.com] has video from the site [rbn.com].
  • Are islands like Stars / Asteroids ? Does the discoverer get the right to name it?

  • Another Link (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is a story about it on the BBC News [bbc.co.uk] as well.

    Mashx.
  • A little off-topic but if people are desparate for their own piece of dirt, I understand the Indonesian government are *thinking* (ie haven't legislated it as yet) the *lease* of some of their off-shore islands/islets for ecotourism, aquaculture, or related purposes. Of course they retain sovereignty (much like a country is Crown Land) but you get title to certain rights (e.g. occupation). I recall the article saying they needed foreign exchange but they were talking about prices in the millions though.

    The biggest problem is not so much a shortage of islands, but that basically unless you've got independent income, there's no way of recreating the hard infrastructure for a self-sustaining hide-away. Just calculate how much it will cost to put in reliable power supply, establish transport links, feed fibre cable, not to mention bribe some techies to stay there and look after the place. There's a good reason why cable landing points tend to be near large metropolitan areas.

    The bar for independent sovereignty seems to be a lot higher now. Rather than trying to establish a place from scratch, people seem to be more interested in breaking off/away (e.g. Balkans, Sir Lanka, parts of Asia). If you want to establish a GeekNation, your best bet is to make a deal with an Indian tribe somewhere and offer them a deal.

    LL

  • Solomon Islands (Score:3)

    by pcburns ( 22427 ) on Thursday May 25, 2000 @02:34AM (#1049770)
    Well, that's only if Australia (not me) actually has dibs on the real estate.

    The new island is near the Solomon Islands.

    The Solomon Islands is a group of islands to the east of Papua New Guinea. There was quite a bit of action around there in World War Two.

    At the moment in the Solomon Islands there is a lot of tension between the ethnic groups particularly on Gaudalcanal. An ethnic group from another less fertile island were attracted to Gaudalcanal due to the easier lifestyle. The original inhabitants of the island are getting uneasy and have formed militias arming themselves with guns left over from World War 2. The militia members dress in traditional bark loincloths. Its a shock to see someone wearing tribal dress and caring guns.

  • Re:hmmm.... new island (Score:3)

    by Glowing Fish ( 155236 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @11:37PM (#1049771) Homepage
    Yes, and by chance the new island is going to be named "Sexalla", because it was the sixth island created in this chain. They are going to sell the .sex domain name for 250,000,000.23 cents, which works out to 25 million dollars and 2 cents for each of the lichen there.

  • I did prefer the earlier format. I miss the Dust Puppy and the send-up of Marantz(?) speakers.

    Thanks, AC


  • No, its off the solomn islands nowhere near New Zealand.

    Plus the news reporters last night said it would be washed away by the sea in a few months, like all the other islands this volcano has created.
  • I reckon this would make an ideal offshore site for a server farm. Who's going to hassle you on top of a volcano miles from the nearest land.

    Lava? Volcanic ash and gasses? The occasional shifting of the 'plates of a newly formed land mass?

    I doubt it's exactly habitable.

    But hey, IANAG(eologist).
  • Apparently, the same volcano has created other small islands (islets?) in the past that have been subsequently reclaimed by the sea.

    If you put a server farm there, make sure you get insurance :)
  • Indeed indeed indeed... Infact I think Egans books are required reading for all nerd types - who else writing today needs to include a glossary of terms (Diaspora) at the back of the book... check his site @ http://www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/ [netspace.net.au]
  • My apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick or a different event here, but wasn't the problem with Taiwan and the UN that the Taiwanese government had retained the _Chinese_ UN seat, as the pre-revolutionary government had hopped across to Taiwan so the logic was that they were still legitimately in charge and giving the seat to the current Chinese government would be recognising a coup?

    Anyway. That's probably a long enough sentence ;)
  • Setting up up a network connection to the island should be no problem as long as the volcano stays active. How? Adapt RFC 1149 - A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers [faqs.org] to use flying rocks instead!
  • Good question. Loompanics Press published a book at one time by Erwin Strauss called something like How To Start Your Own Country, but I never got around to buying or reading it.

    Seems like starting your own country would be tough, especially since you'd have to come up with a good answer to the natural question, "Why should we recognize your government?" I'm afraid the bar for the definition of the word "good" would be set pretty high.
    --

  • Volcano researchers are nuts. (Score:3)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday May 25, 2000 @04:46AM (#1049780) Homepage Journal
    It says in the article that they approached within 750m of the thing. Holy cow! If there was a undersea landslide they'd have been toast.

    It reminds me of the guys who stayed to monitor and film Penatubo while the US military was evacuating. I've seen films of the thing -- it looked like a picture from Hell's national park. The ash cloud went up for miles and there was huge blasts lightning coming out of it. If I were anywhere within 20 miles of the thing I'd be getting out fast.

    I once talked with an uncharacteristically prudent volcano researcher who told this story. He and his crew found a nice grassy spot to camp near the volcano they were studying. There were lots of boulders lying around, so when they were setting up camp they decided to move one of the them to make some more room. After finding green grass underneath, they decided to camp further away.

  • how should he apply to UN for recognition? Under which premises will he get it and how can he avoid the jurisdiction of his nationality overrules his claim?

    I don't think you are thinking about the right problems. Disregarding apperances, the world does not consist of lawyers and government bureacrats.

    The main problem for the new nation would be what to do when some goons with machine guns come (take your pick: Russian mafia, Colombian cartels, Malaysian pirates, just some feisty locals). The world is a much bruter and in many ways simpler place than it seems from Slashdot.

    Kaa
  • You could make it geothermally powered. A volcanic island must have way more energy then a few rotting potatos.

    Plus, we could /. a volcano.

  • Slashdot It! (Score:3)

    by doorbot.com ( 184378 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @09:51PM (#1049783) Journal
    If all the faithful slashdot readers go visit the new island, can will it be the first recorded slashdotting of a landform?

    Yes, humans can trimph over nature!

  • As Monty Python castmembers would say... (Score:3)

    by Sir_Winston ( 107378 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @09:51PM (#1049784)
    "I CLAIM THIS ISLAND IN THE NAME OF SPAIN!!!"

    "But, is it an African island or a European island?"

    Oops. My Karma just went down like an NT server... ;-)
  • Pacifire...

  • No, silly, it's not an island (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bill Gates just figured that as long as he was going to be the evil villain, he might as well build himself a secret lair.

    Just you wait. Next comes the evil cackle and the white persian cat.

  • Re:Exodus time! (Score:3)

    by zeck ( 103790 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @10:00PM (#1049787)
    Yeah, that would be cool! When the volcano erupts again you'd get rid of all your deviant and stupid geeks at the same time!
  • M$ would LOVE that, when the Krakatoa event happens they could proceed with their kerboros plans unimpeeded
  • It'd be cool if a whole clan of geeks settled on the island and set up some sort of geek compound serving madness to the rest of the world via moonbounce.

  • I want to see a little 'X' in the middle of the Pacific. Then I know that this event is real.

    CSIRO is definitely a 'news for nerds' site.


  • Made me think of Carrier Command. Now where can I get a fully autmoated aircraft carrier......
  • 1 million says it's a type of boring slime algae. ;)
  • I watched the footage on the news last night and noted two things. The new island is supposed to be part of the Solomon Islands, and it is also supposed to form at a level of 2 meters beneath the surface. How the hell do they know it will form at 2 meters below the surface if it is still forming? Stupid news anchors. Will they ever get anything right?

  • That island has got to be flame-bait.. (Score:3)

    by 1337d00d ( 177978 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @10:37PM (#1049794)
    Sorry, bad pun. Now my karma's going down like an overclocked Win2k server running on that island without a heatsink.

  • Not Again (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Great, a new island...
    But why the fuck that moronic statement about server farms? Trying to be original for the millionth time? Don't forget the Beowulf cluster you could put there, with your sattelite IP connection to serve the French with Nazi memoribilia and to spread DeCCS, or perhaps MS will invade the island to build Microsoftland wher monopolies are enforced by law, or we use it as a playground for self replicating robots...
  • Anyone read Greg Egan's Distress
    A group of anarchist biotechnicans steal patented biotech and use it to "grow" a huge articifical island from bioenginnered coral species.


    Then they declare explicitly that their island will respect no patents or copyright laws. Of course all the major coutries boycott them, but it becomes a haven for free thinking hacker types.


    The rest of Egan's works are pretty cool too.

  • Not that anyone would care about *facts*, but... (Score:5)

    by orpheus ( 14534 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @10:38PM (#1049797)
    Here are a few resources for anyone with the guts to make a go of it, and the brains to do it right. Some cover artificial islands, and some natural.

    Proposed Inhabited Artificial Islands in International Waters [luf.org]

    United Nations Convention [greenpeace.org]
    on the Law of the Sea Alas, for an 'artificial island' server farm, Article 121 states "3. Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf." Sections 60 and 80 confirm this. For 'natural islands' the key article seems to be Article 76, covering the 'continental shelf' provision.

    Isn't the new volcanic island off New Zealand? if so, this summary of the New Zealand Geologic and Oceanographic Service's interpretation of UNCLOS [linz.govt.nz] may be useful.

    There's a lot more, but basically sovereignity does *not* depend on actually possessing territory (the Vatican was sovereign during the time when Italy claimed its territory, as acknowledged by the other major powers) and actually possessing territory, the consent of the governed, and an independent, fully functioning government with military forces sufficient to defend that territory is not enough to guarantee sovereignity. (Taiwan was once thrown out of the UN because it was deemed to lack sovereignity despite possessing all of these)

    Happy planning -- and best'o'luck to you!


    _____________
  • I don't know if it made it's way to the networks in the states and elsewhere yet but there is some fantastic footage of it in action. Was shown on various Australian TV networks last night. Think I also saw it on the local sky and fox news services so you may want to check them out. Then again Cnn is probably beeming it around the globe by now. If not try some of the Australian news services web sites, have not checked them out yet but they may be worth a try. Probably wwwabc.net.au would be your best bet. I hope this is useful to someone.

    "Patience is a virtue, afforded those with nothing better to do." - I don't remember

  • Sorry, I should clarify that, send you 50$, and ask what will be the first animal species to inhabit the new island.

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