Tek-Bull

Floating Island Found by the Royal New Zealand Air Force in the Pacific

One of the most exciting things about our earth is how often it consistently surprises us. After all, we’ve explored practically every inch of the planet, right? Well, that’s in fact not the case. There are many places on earth that we as a human species have yet to penetrate, and what’s more, we have so many things left to understand.

Take for example the floating islands found by the Royal New Zealand Air Force in the south Pacific. These islands are made of volcanic pumice that covered nearly 9,000 square miles. That’s roughly the size of New Jersey. When it was discovered, the man who first saw the rock was completely thrown by surprise. In a statement, he said it was, “the weirdest thing I’ve seen in 18 years at sea”. These “floating islands” were compared to polar ice shelves, and are thought to have been discharged from the underwater volcano Monowai.

Another reason that this particular floating volcanic rock is getting so much attention is because it helps solidify a major theory in the Earth’s biological evolution that says these raft-rocks could carry animals across bodies of water to other lands, and were home to the very first microscopic life forms. PhysOrg