Yeah, I know I said that the next patch would just be French Polynesia, but things kinda snowballed. So instead, have the entire eastern pacific, featuring the aforementioned French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Niue, a third of Kiribati, Half of American Samoa (Like with Alaska and Hawaii, cut in half by the map border) and half a dozen tiny islands
claimed by the United States in the 19th century because a bird once crapped there.
There are however quite a few things that need mentioning, both geographical and political. Apologies in advance for the wall of text.
First up, I'm showing Niue and the Cook Islands as de-facto independent nations. A strong case can be made that as dependent territories of New Zealand they should be classed as Kiwi protectorates and shown accordingly. However, both
Niue and the
Cook Islands really do function as if they were independent nations, with domestic governments and foreign relations, relying on New Zealand mostly for military protection. While the pair are less sovereign than most nations, and are not member states of the United Nations, they have a similar relationship to new Zealand as the
Marshall Islands,
Micronesia and
Palau have to the United states, are effectively fully self-governing, and participate in multiple UN agencies. In addition,
wikipedia lists them in the 'Other states' section in its list of sovereign states, alongside such other edge cases as Somaliland or North Cyprus.
Also, it means I can colour them distinctly rather than have them both in the same shade of light blue.
Not entirely sovereign nations aside, the bigger problem compiling this patch was figuring out how to show the various isolated underwater reefs that dot the South Pacific. While reefs in the immediate proximity of islands are fairly comprehensively mapped, there are several reefs (and, as we'll see, "reefs") quite far away from the nearest land that, while shallow, don't quite peak above the surface. I was planning on just following the world coral-cover dataset I've been relying on so far, however I spotted a few notable inconsistencies in the data that forced me to do some deeper digging.
One of the best resources for this actually turned out to be the Operational Navigation Charts produced by the United States and allied militaries during the latter years of the cold war,
digitised here. I last mentioned them
in regards to Greenland, for showing the pre-warming coastline and for providing a few fixed locations I used to figure out which datasets are useful and which aren't. The series also covers much of the rest of the globe, with the maps of the South Pacific often highlighting and naming isolated reefs and shoals, which was incredibly useful when trying to figure out whether to show a feature or not. In addition, this book on global coral cover (one of the primary sources for the corals GIS dataset I've been using)
digitised by the internet archive here, the big hisatlas maps of the Pacific (which shows islands and reefs in a fair amount of detail) and finally
this book on Sailing Directions in the Eastern Pacific from 1952 (that lists the locations of many known or suspected reefs and shoals), all proved useful sources.
First up, I scaled back the reefs northwest of the Hawaiian archipelago. While there are banks there, and fairly shallow ones at that, they aren't full coral reefs. Basically no source aside from the corals GIS data shows them as such,
including Spalding et al. (2001). The one exception is Raita Bank, where which crops up in some sources, so it stayed in.
Next an easy exclusion, which Wikipedia agrees is likely a phantom island,
Filippo Reef. The only confirmed 'sighting' was in 1926, the sea depth at the reported location is greater than five kilometres and it is omitted by both the coral GIS data,
Spalding et al. (2001) and the ONC maps (which don't even cover the patch of sea where the reef would be if it existed). A relatively clear-cut case.
Now we turn to the Cook Islands, which can be divided into two distinct groups of islands, northern and southern. There was only one, fairly easy submerged reef in the northern group,
Tima Reef, just southeast of
Pukapuka Atoll (not to be confused with
Puka-Puka Atoll in French Polynesia).
It has a wikipedia entry, the bathymetry data is favourable, it's shown by both hisatlas and
the relevant ONC map,
it appears on a map in Spalding et al. (2001),
and gets a mention in the 1952 Sailing Directions, with a fairly in-depth description. It's there alright, even if the GIS dataset doesn't show it.
The southern Cook Islands in contrast have two, extremely annoying to pin down reefs. First up, Winslow Reef, which I suspect but can't prove is a phantom reef.
It has an incredibly sparse wikipedia entry and appears sporadically in the sources.
Spalding et al. (2001) shows it, as does the GIS data, and
it is mentioned in the Sailing Directions (1952),
as well as appearing on the relevant ONC map. But here's the thing, as far as I can tell, it remains largely unexplored. The
Directions mention is
incredibly brief, its GIS entry is copied verbatim from
Spalding et al. (2001), and
this report from an expedition to the area in 2013 found nothing at the reef's supposed coordinates. It is however fairly isolated and supposedly understudied, and absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, so I very tentatively included it.
The second reef drove me slightly mad for most of Sunday. It appears as a large, circular structure, very reminiscent of a coral atoll on the GIS dataset. I thought it was a submerged reef, but was stymied at every turn trying to find the identity of this unknown 'reef'. As far as I can tell, it doesn't even have a name. I already knew that the corals GIS used
Spalding et al. (2001) as a primary source, but after spending way too long looking for a digitised copy, I was annoyed to find that that source makes no mention of it
in its section on the Cook Islands. Dead-end. I then spent an awful lot of time looking for named reefs in various old atlases on
DavidRumsey.com, and drew a blank. I even broke out my own physical vintage atlas to see if I could find anything in the area, with no luck (complete aside, but every cartography nerd needs a cumbersome atlas older than they are).
I eventually found something when I stumbled on
the right ONC chart. There, in the right position and exactly the same shape as in the GIS data (accounting for projection distortion) was my mystery reef. And it still told me basically nothing. The 'reef' is labelled as "
breaker position approximate (reported 1945)", which is basically useless because it doesn't give a name. Once I stumbled on the
Sailing Directions (1952) I checked there, and found
this equally unhelpful entry; "
Breakers were reported about 230 miles westward of Rarotonga in approximately 21°05' S., 163°57' W.". I know this pertains to the mystery reef as the coordinates line up with its position on the ONC chart, and it gives basically the same incredibly brief description that adds no new information. I have found no other leads, after an awful lot of searching.
In summary, breakers were reported there in 1945 and, as far as I can tell, never again since. It was mentioned in a handful of places and charted on a few maps as a possible shipping hazard but with no further corroboration of its existence. At some point the compilers of the GIS data stumbled on one such map,
possibly the very same ONC map I just linked to copying the shapes without doing any further corroboration. The baffling thing is that they added this reef even though it's probably a phantom, but missed the blindingly obvious
Beveridge Reef four degrees to the west (more on that below). I suspect it might have something to do with the two features being either side of the cutoff between two maps in the ONC series. The unnamed reef got in, the very real Beveridge reef off to the side
on another sheet didn't.
Having reviewed what scant evidence I could draw together, I strongly suspect that this unnamed reef is indeed a phantom reef, and duly omitted it from the R-QBAM.
On another note, there are two major offshore reefs under the Aegis of Niue. The first is the aforementioned Beveridge Reef, which like Tima Reef absolutely exists.
It has a wikipedia article,
appears on the ONC maps,
has an entry in the Sailing Directions (1951), has been discussed in
a couple of places on the internet,
gets mentioned by Spalding et al. (2001) and even had a ship wreck there as recently as 2017. But oddly it doesn't show up on the GIS data. I included it anyway as the evidence is so overwhelmingly strong, but it was a notable omission. The second Niuan reef is
Antiope Reef, which is more of a marginal edge-case, but is mentioned in every source that also covers Beveridge Reef, so I decided to include it. A couple of other reefs in the same general area as Niue such as Harans Reef are more questionable, and are usually considered phantom islands.
And now we reach French Polynesia. The first one to cover is Portland Reef in the very Southeast corner of the Gambier Islands. It appears on the corals GIS data, lines up with the bathymetry,
has a wikipedia entry and appears on one of the ONC charts as "Banc Portland". It got in. There are a handful of questionable reefs in the Austral Islands to the far south. Firstly, the GIS data has a small reef to the northeast of
Rapa Iti island. I excluded this as it appears in no other source I have found. To name just the most prominent omissions, the
Sailing Directons (1952), the ONC maps and
Spalding et al. (2001) all either lack this feature or do not mention it, so it was omitted. I judged that two final banks did indeed make the cut. Neilson or Lancaster Reef to the northwest of
Rapa Iti, and Moses Bank south of
Rurutu. Both are missing from the GIS data
but are present in Spalding et al. (2001). Both appear on the ONC maps in the
right places and
get mentions in the
Sailing Directions (1952). Moses Bank is even shown by hisatlas. The combined evidence was enough that I added both.
Well that was a slog. It was annoying, but I lost the better part of a weekend researching this, so I felt it needed explaining in full. Aside from the opaque mess that are the isolated coral reefs, there is a little bit of geographical trivia I wish to impart.
Kritimati island is the atoll with the largest land area in the world, making up 70% of the dry land in the Republic of Kiribati, as well as its single land pixel on the R-QBAM. Also,
there's an atoll in the Solomon Islands where the locals claim that they were annexed by the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 1850's, and thus they should be US citizens. Certainly an interesting way to try and wrangle an American visa.
Next stop, Antarctica ...
Patch 121 - Eastern Pacific;
- Added French Polynesia
- Added the Cook Islands
- Added Niue
- Added the eastern half of American Samoa (damn map border)
- Added Kingman Reef
- Added Palmyra Atoll
- Added Jarvis Island
- Added the rest of the Line Islands, making up the eastern third of Kiribati