In satellite images, it was virtually indistinguishable from the flotilla of icebergs floating around it. When approached from the horizon across the Weddell Sea in Antarctica, it even looked like one, only it was covered in a layer of ocean mud and grime. But scientists on the Polarstern expedition have now identified it as a previously unexplored island.
The island, which is about the size of the White House (about 66,740 square feet or 6,200 square meters), does not yet have a name, according to the Polarstern team at the Alfred Wegener Institute. The newly discovered island has already been fully surveyed and its precise geographic coordinates will soon be added to international nautical charts and other critical data sets.
Until this year, the island’s location had been misidentified by about a nautical mile and ambiguously defined as a “danger zone” for mariners on nautical charts, according to an AWI press release. statement. The mystery intrigued geophysicist Simon Dreutter, whose research paper on the AWI Pole Star The icebreaking vessel involves collecting and analyzing bathymetric data, that is, underwater topographic mapping of ocean floors scanned using sonar, blue-green LiDAR laser and other tools.
“The nautical chart showed an area with unexplored hazards to navigation, but it was not clear what it was or where the information came from,” Dreutter said in a statement.
“I visited all the coasts that we had here in the bathymetry laboratory (databases) and returned to the bridge,” the researcher continued. “Looking out the window, we saw an ‘iceberg’ that looked kind of dirty. Upon closer inspection, we realized it was probably rock. Then we changed course and headed in that direction and it became increasingly clear that we had an island in front of us.”
For those about to (identify a) rock
He Pole Star and his 93-person team of international scientists, technicians and crew had been sent by AWI’s Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research to track the ice and water flow of Antarctica’s Larsen Ice Shelf that was melting when it discovered this unexplored island. The team had been exploring in the Weddell Sea, northwest of Antarctica, since February 8, 2026, until a series of deadly storms forced them to seek shelter behind Joinville Island, an icy outpost at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, near Antarctica. named Dangerous Islands. They saw the unexplored island on their way to safety.
Bathymetric data collected by Dreutter and others later helped the crew navigate the Polarstern to a safe distance from this unexplored island, from an area of nearby ocean with at least 50 meters (164 feet) of water under the ship’s keel. At a distance of 150 meters (492 feet) from the island, the icebreaking ship circumnavigated this previously unknown land mass, examining the seafloor with an onboard multibeam echo sounder, a type of sonar that produces high-resolution 3D images. The team also sent an imaging drone to collect elevation data and shoreline measurements using classical photogrammetric methods.
The as-yet-unnamed island (which I can’t stop you from trying to name in the comments below) rises to about 52 feet (16 meters) from sea level at its highest point. It turned out to be only a little longer than the Pole Star itself about 130 meters (427 ft) long compared to the icebreaker’s 118 meters (387 ft), and twice as wide at 50 meters (164 ft).
Seamounts, polar meltwater and climate change
It is still unclear whether local ice melting due to climate change could have been a key factor in revealing the new unexplored island. However, the Polarstern team has reported that summer sea ice in this northwestern region of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea has been verifiably smaller and less numerous since 2017, “presumably as a result of warmer surface water,” according to AWI.
The newly discovered island is not the first time Pole Star has contributed to world nautical charts. In 2014, AWI bathymetry team leader Boris Dorschel-Herr discovered, mapped and reported on two underwater mountains, one in the South Atlantic and one in the Weddell Sea.
Just to get the creative juices flowing, before an official name is added for this island. IBCSO (International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean), here are a couple of names that have already been taken for past landforms around Antarctica: “Elliot Rocks”, “Minotaur Pass”, “West Groin” and the now incorrectly named “Final Island”.
