Climate change has caused the oceans to have raised their reach in a few centimeters, but human action escapes also the opposite in other environments. The most obvious case is almost missing from the Aral Sea, but we find a more recent one in a nearby basin, that of the Caspian.
A new island. A new island It has emerged from the waters in the Caspian Sea. The geographical accident is due not volcanic activity (as usually happens occasionally) but to the progressive decrease in sea level in this inner basin. The existence of the island was confirmed this summer by the Shirshov Institute in Oceanography, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IO Ras)
On the ground (or almost). According to Explain the institutionthe first sighting of this new sand bank in the middle of the waters of Caspo was held from space, in November last year. However, the existence of the island was not confirmed and the unknown of its existence lasts for a few months.
Until the end of May, when the IO Ras brought an expedition to the land. According to the oceanographic body, the expedition could not make land on the island due to the low depth of the waters and the weather conditions, but could see it and perform a first analysis that included the deployment of a drone to be able to approach it.
The island without name. The island has not yet been named and there is little we know about it. As Io Ras points out, it is about 30 kilometers Southwest of Maly island Zhemchuzhny, another small islet formed in front of the Delta del Volga. The description made by its discoverers of the new formation is that of “a soaked plain”, a kind of marsh in the middle of the sea, as can be seen in the photos.
In addition to appointing it, the team Point out that we will still have to study it in better detail to investigate in its “biohydrochemistry, hydrobiology and (in) the dynamics of sea behavior.” To facilitate the study, the team placed an oceanographic station about 40 cm deep in the waters surrounding the island.
Experts expect the continued descent of the sea level in the Caspus to make the island expand over time. The end of summer would be a conducive moment for the study of the new island since the evaporation of sea water during the summer, along with a lower flow in its tributary rivers also implies a slight seasonal drop in this sea level.
Importance for marine life. It will be interesting to see how the appearance of this islet to the ecology of the environment affects. The land could be used for some of the bird species that inhabit the Caspian to nest or make a break in the environment with other reasons.
The other new islands. The warm -up of the planet is also able to “give” new islets to the geography of the planet through the withdrawal of the ice from the poles. It is what It has happened too Recently in Alaska, where the withdrawal of Alsek glacier has allowed the appearance of an island in the homonymous lake.
However, the main engine in this creating new formations in our seas and oceans is volcanic activity. A recent example is The island that arose with the eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano. It was the already missing The island of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, the result of the fusion between two existing volcanic islands.
It is not necessary to leave the caspian waters to find another example. At the beginning of 2023 a mud volcano erupted in this sea, creating a new island that faded little by little. These examples do not predict a long life expectancy for the new training, but the scientists who study it believe that the progressive decrease of sea level will imply that this island grows, at least for now. If it will be later that is razed by the sea, that will be another story.
Image | Io Ras
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