{"id":47489,"date":"2026-04-11T09:12:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T09:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47489"},"modified":"2026-04-11T09:12:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T09:12:05","slug":"secret-island-discovered-in-antarticas-danger-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47489","title":{"rendered":"Secret island discovered in Antartica&#8217;s &#8216;danger zone&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Well, isle be damned.<\/p>\n<p>Explorers made the discovery of a lifetime after stumbling across an uncharted, Egyptian pyramid-sized island during an expedition in a treacherous region off Antarctica known as the \u201cdanger zone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt became increasingly clear that we had an island in front of us!\u201d declared Simon Dreutter from the Bathymetry section at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.awi.de\/en\/about-us\/service\/press\/single-view\/unkartierte-insel-demnaechst-auf-seekarten-verzeichnet.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">per a press release by the institute.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dreutter was part of a 93-person team of international explorers who had been scouring the northwestern Weddell Sea aboard the organization\u2019s icebreaker Polarstern since February 8, 2026.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The crew initially thought the unmapped island (pictured) was a dirty iceberg or rock. <span class=\"credit\">Simon Dreutter<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>However, their expedition was interrupted by a lashing storm that forced the seafarers to take refuge on the sheltered side of Joinville Island.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>That\u2019s when, like something out of an old-timey adventure novel, crewmembers and scientists alike were greeted by the sight of a mysterious landmass in an area that had previously been marked as a danger zone in the available maps.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The island is roughly the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. <span class=\"credit\">Christian Haas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cOn our route, the nautical chart showed an area with unexplored dangers to navigation, but it wasn\u2019t clear what it was or where the information came from,\u201d reported Dreutter, an expert in nautical cartography. \u201cI scoured all the coastlines we had here in the bathymetry (underwater topography) lab and went back to the bridge.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>He added, \u201cLooking out of the window, we saw an \u2018iceberg\u2019 that looked kind of dirty. On closer inspection, we realized that it was probably a rock.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cOn our route, the nautical chart showed an area with unexplored dangers to navigation, but it wasn\u2019t clear what it was or where the information came from,\u201d reported Dreutter. <span class=\"credit\">Simon Dreutter<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After changing course and approaching the promontory, the crew quickly realized that it was no rock \u2014 it was an island.<\/p>\n<p>The crew steered Polarstern toward the unmapped protrusion, eventually coming within 500 feet of the aquatic anomaly, which they were able to explore from above using a drone.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The Polarstern is sailing across the ocean. <span class=\"credit\">Christian Haas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n\t<\/aside>\n<p>The land with no name reportedly jutted 50 feet above the waves and measured 165 feet wide and around 426 feet long \u2014 roughly the same length as the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>The experts are yet unclear as to why the \u201cisland is marked as a danger zone on the nautical chart, but not as a coastline in other data sets\u201d and why its mapped position is a mile off the actual one.<\/p>\n<p>The isle hides its secrets well, apparently. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the satellite images analyzed, the island could hardly be distinguished from the numerous icebergs drifting around in the immediate vicinity due to its ice cover,\u201d they noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The next goal will be putting the island on the map,\u00a0meaning it will need to be named.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of cartography-related capers, this <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/15\/science\/bermuda-waters-are-hiding-a-mysterious-giant-structure-thats-unlike-anything-else\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">past winter, scientists discovered the surprising reason<\/a> hy Bermuda never sank after its volcanoes shut down more than 30 million years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The answer lies below the oceanic crust under Bermuda, where a mysterious rock layer keeps the island aloft.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/10\/science\/secret-island-discovered-in-antarticas-danger-zone\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, isle be damned. Explorers made the discovery of a lifetime after stumbling across an uncharted, Egyptian pyramid-sized island during an expedition in a treacherous region&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}