Explore disappearing islands - from Atlantis myths to real losses. Caspian mud volcano islets, Sandy Island, East Island, rising seas and erosion. Climate risks
Atlantis. The word alone conjures images of a lost civilization swallowed in a single night. It sounds like a fable—and essentially it is. What’s striking, though, is that even today islands really do vanish. Not in myths, but in the world we share. The truth, as ever, is a little more complicated than the legends.
In early 2023, a small island appeared without warning in the Caspian Sea. It wasn’t on any chart, and no one built it—it rose after an eruption of the Kumani Bank mud volcano. NASA scientists spotted it in satellite imagery. But the celebration was short-lived: by late 2024, the island had disappeared again. Seawater gnawed away at its fragile surface until almost nothing remained.
It wasn’t the first time nature brought forth an island only to reclaim it. Still, the episode felt like a quiet reminder of how delicate new land can be—especially when it has only just emerged.
Sometimes islands vanish only on paper. For decades, Sandy Island sat on maps between Australia and New Caledonia. When researchers finally sailed to those coordinates, they found nothing but open water. It turned out to be an old error that simply lingered, until the island was officially erased from charts.
A similar tale surrounds Bermeja, an island in the Gulf of Mexico. It had been recorded since the 16th century, yet modern tools never managed to find it. Whether it truly existed remains unclear—quite possibly another cartographic mistake.
Islands also vanish for real. In 2018, a hurricane destroyed East Island near Hawaii. It didn’t slip beneath the surface in an instant, but the damage was irreversible—the land was almost entirely erased.
The culprits vary: storms, erosion, rising seas. All of it is happening here and now. Examples are multiplying, and some islands once inhabited have already become unlivable. That’s not a mapping glitch—that’s a hard fact.
Legends of Atlantis still stir the imagination. In reality, though, the story looks different. Islands don’t vanish overnight, and certainly not with entire cities—yet they do recede into the sea. On that point, there’s little room for doubt.
Today, disappearing islands are less a myth than a test. It’s no longer the stuff of fantasy but the daily work of geologists, climatologists, and everyone tracking how the natural world is changing.
Perhaps. Only it wouldn’t be a legend, but another island in the Pacific or Indian Ocean slowly slipping underwater. More and more, this is discussed as a tangible threat—especially for nations and communities living on low-lying coasts.
We’re no longer searching for Atlantis. We’re watching the land itself retreat and asking a blunt question: who’s next? This isn’t a story about the past—it’s about what’s unfolding before our eyes.
