Thompson Island (South Atlantic)

Thompson Island was a phantom island in the South Atlantic. According to the Global Volcanism Program, it was thought to be about 70 km (43 mi; 38 nmi) north-northeast of Bouvet Island,[1] a small Norwegian dependency between South Africa and Antarctica.

1898 German map of Bouvet Island, with Thompson I.
Thompson
Island
Supposed location of Thompson Island on a map of the Atlantic Ocean.

History

The island was first reported and named by whaling ship captain George Norris in 1825, supposedly the same day as sighting and landing on Bouvet Island, erroneously thinking the island to be undiscovered and naming it Liverpool Island. The last reported sighting was in 1893. When, however, the German survey ship Valdivia fixed the position of Bouvet in 1898, it then looked for Thompson, but did not find it. If Thompson ever existed, it is probable that it disappeared in a volcanic eruption sometime in the 1890s,[2] though in 1997 it was reported that the sea depth at the supposed location is greater than 2,400 metres (7,900 ft; 1.5 mi), rendering the existence of a submarine volcano all but impossible.[1]

Thompson Island continued to appear on maps published as late as 1943.[3]

In fiction
gollark: And it shouldn't be taken as that, utter lyricoid.
gollark: Well, it's *not* binding.
gollark: This had better not get turned into a binding vote somehow, or it'll fall victim to the LyricLy effect and somehow pass in a ridiculously convoluted way.
gollark: I had to get a rhyming dictionary for this.
gollark: Well, I *did* engage in rap some time ago.

See also

Notes
  1. "Thompson Island". Global Volcanism Program. Smithsonian Institution.
  2. P.E. Baker (1967). "Historical & Geological Notes on Bouvetoya" (PDF). British Antarctic Survey Bulletin (13): 71–84. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-05-08.
  3. A. R. H. and N. A. M. (1943). "Review: A New Chart of the Antarctic". The Geographical Journal. 102 (1): 29–34. doi:10.2307/1789367. JSTOR 1789367.
  4. Geoffrey Jenkins (1962). A Grue of Ice. Fontana. ISBN 0-00-613269-3.

References
  • Gaddis, Vincent (1965). Invisible Horizons. Philadelphia: Chilton.
  • Stommel, Henry (1984). Lost Islands: The Story of Islands That Have Vanished from Nautical Charts. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, pp 98–99. ISBN 0-7748-0210-3.
  • Thompson Island entry in the "Legends and Sea Stories" layer at BlooSee. Broken link


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