Hey everybody, hope you're having a great holiday season and New Year's is coming up
Oh very quickly we have Geography Now! t-shirts. You can get these now. They're really cool
We also have Geography Now! coffee mugs you can get them look at that they come with the artwork and everything the logo for
The first time yeah, we I've never done merchandise before so yeah you guys can get these there's like a link
So as you know New Year's is coming and in light of that
I kind of wanted to talk about the topic of new this is a topical video
I wanted to do for a long time
But I never had time because I was always researching all those countries for the country videos
What are the newest islands on earth Before we jump into this though speaking of new we have a new sponsor for geography now
Yeah, we got another video game sponsor
I don't know why the video games seem to like geography now
but I'm cool with that because
Everybody likes video games now if you're like me you grew up with classic RPG games and hero wars is a customizable
Upgradable battleground where you can pick your own
Army with unique skills and weapons train your guards and healers went on offense and fend off invaders with warriors and wizards and everything in
Between hero wars is an online communal game available on Android and iOS
And if you download the game in the link in the description with the promo code hero secret
You will get an upgraded hero to start your battle. Thanks. hero wars for sponsoring geography now
Anyway, the cool thing about planet Earth is that it is a terrestrial planet with a silicate mantle
Basically that means we have lava and that means
New land can form this is a very unique thing that not a lot of planets have and even to this day
You can still witness new land being formed so today
We're gonna talk about the newest islands that have been formed on earth many Islands have been formed in the past
But they have unfortunately been washed away or eroded by the waves of the oceans in this list we're gonna
Talk about the islands that have breached the surface of the ocean and are still standing today
So let's jump into it number one Tigres Island
Which became an island in 1962 in Angola now if you watched the Angola episode you will know exactly what I'm talking about
Tigres island actually used to be a peninsula that used to jut off the coast of Angola
Over time though the ocean waves from the Atlantic broke off the isthmus that connected the peninsula
And then it became an island
Unfortunately though this meant that the people that were living on that
Peninsula were cut off from the mainland the pipeline that brought in freshwater was destroyed and to this day
Tigres Island is a ghost town virtually nobody lives there and nobody pretty much can live there because all resource were cut off anyway
Yeah
tigress island island number two formed in 1967 Surtsey island off of
Iceland again if you watch the Iceland episode you will know exactly what I'm talking about
Back in the 60s a ton of people were noticing that a huge underwater volcano was erupting
And it kept going on for about four years until it finally stopped and created Surtsey over the years it has eroded a little
Bit but it still stands today today only biologists and volcanologists are allowed to go on the island to study it
It's very rarely open to the public, but yeah, it was a pretty big event that happened in Icelandic history
And it is speculated to still stand above water for about another 100 or so years
Surtsey volcanoes whoo-hoo Island number three discovered in 2005 Greenland Uuartoq Qeqertaq
think I pronounced that right
Uuartoq Qwqertag Greenlandic language is so weird you got what that oh?
and yeah sounds anyway now one thing you have to understand about the Arctic and
Antarctic areas is that they always go through a freezing period and a melting period in the summer and winter times obviously
But in 2005 US Explorer Dennis Schmidt noticed something after sea ice had melted
Substantially in the summer of 2005 it turns out that this strange Island with three peninsulas
Had actually been detached from the mainland and since it was discovered this way for the first time it was then hence
Qualified as being a new Island, and that's where you get in the whole debate
where geologists are like
Well does sea ice
Count if it connects a landmass to another landmass, and then some will say well if it's perpetual
Ice then yes
But if it's not then no but the point is this was the first time it was discovered so it kind of counts yeah
Greenland yeah new island next one discovered in 2006 Tonga's home reef now if you don't know anything about Tonga
Which by the way?
I am so excited to do that episode when it comes up Tonga is like one of the world's fastest-growing
Inland area countries on the planet and the reason why is because Tonga lies on the Tonga trench
Which is basically a smashing point between two tectonic plates or in simpler terms?
It's a huge volcanic area underwater Tonga has a lot of places where lava just kind of bubbles up and creates new islands
It's amazing and it's beautiful now this place was actually already known of for hundreds of years
But it wasn't until 2006 when things really started to bubble up a team of oceanographers
and sailors noticed that large amounts of floating pumice and
Volcanic debris were coming out of the ocean until it finally breached the surface to this day the volcanic
Is still going on of course you know nobody would ever actually try to land on that area because you know the volcano is still
Kind of erupting but you can see it next up discovered in 2013
Russia's Yaya island located in the new Siberian islands in the Laptev sea with a link of about 370 meters by
125 the Russians got lucky by discovering it this small little wonder expanded Russia's exclusive economic zone by about
452 square kilometres, I mean not like anybody was really competing with them anyway
But basically a cargo helicopter was flying by and they noticed it and then in 2014 a research vessel
Sailed by and officially confirmed as existence basically the island was discovered
because it was under a bunch of sea ice and was never noticed before after the ice melted BAM a new island popped up and
That's the tricky thing about the Arctic. You don't really know what's under the ice ok my natural lighting is dying out
I'm gonna have to turn on my light to lighten up this room
See I always film these things that like the worst possible hours, and then the light goes down from the Sun
And then I have to turn on this light at anyway the next one Japan's (unintelligible) Nishinoshima island basically
Just like Tonga Japan lies on a bunch of trenches and tectonic plate smash zones now
It was already known that this island had existed in an underwater caldera in the 70s, but it wasn't really until
2013 when things really started moving soon a volcanic cone formed raising the island to an estimated height of
142 meters above sea level. Oh sorry
I just did a little bit more extensive research
And it turns out this island was already known of back in the 1700s a Spanish ship the Rosario passed by
But yeah basically the big part of the island hadn't formed until
2013ish and eruptions are still going on into this day the land makes up about 3 square kilometers
And finally the world's most recently formed island and still standing today Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai
island now
There's a weird one because this is kind of like a volcanic eruption that happened
Between two islands and kind of connected them Hunga Tonga and
Hunga Ha'apai. Which is why they decided to name the new island Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai
It's like just put the two together anyway eruptions were noticed as early as maybe 2009. However. It wasn't really until
2014-2015ish when the eruptions reached the surface of the sea and attached both of the two islands now Tonga has a lot of
Submarine volcanic activity and when this type of thing happens the superheated rock is forced up to the surface
This is because the chemical reaction between the ash and the water allows it to turn into
- hard rock whereas in other areas. It just kind of washes away. This is why Hunga Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai
I I love saying that is only the third
Volcanic island known and recorded to have survived more than a couple months a few people have actually been able to go to the island
And document it and it's really cool. It just kind of looks like this surreal lunar landscape
Type of area, but yeah, that's about it keep in mind in this list
I only included the naturally formed islands not the man-made or land reclaimed islands that have happened throughout history
And I did not include the islands that have previously formed
But then got washed away by oceanic currents such as the USA's Shelly Island
Yemen's jadeed and Schoelen Islands cavity in the Solomon Islands and Zala Cove
And I didn't really include the north frisian barrier islands off the coast of germany I mean
They're still there, but they're kind of like always underwater. They're like sandy shoals. I don't know maybe they count
Maybe they don't I don't know we'll do another episode on like tidal islands. That's a really cool phenomena too, but anyway
Yeah, I really wanted to do this episode because I thought it was really cool
Yeah, the newest islands in the world yeah, that's about it
Thank you for watching subscribe if you'd like and here's to the new year stay cool stay tuned