SEA FLOOR RISES OFF COAST OF JAPAN

Marine organisms such as seaweed and sea urchins are still attached to rocks on the new land mass, suggesting it rose out of the ocean. Officials from Rausu have sealed off the area so it can be studied. - AJW.

Urchins and other ocean-dwelling organisms can better be seen in the above photo.

April 25, 2015 - HOKKAIDO, JAPAN - The appearance of newly formed land along Shiretoko Peninsula’s southeastern coast is causing a stir. 

The unexplained mass measures roughly 300 meters (984 feet) to 500 meters (1,640 feet) long, 30 meters (98 feet) wide and rises 10 to 15 meters (32 to 49 feet) above sea level, a town official said April 25, a day after it was discovered.

"The local residents said they didn't hear any sounds and there were no tremors (when the land appeared),” said Katsuhiro Tanaka, the president of the Rausu Fisheries Cooperative Association, who viewed the expanded coastline the day it was discovered.

Authorities do not believe the sudden emergence of the landmass was related to the magnitude-7.8 earthquake which rocked Nepal last week, killing more than 4000 people.  

While residents had already stated that the sudden appearance of the new land caused a landslide as it butted up against the peninsula, a professor says the opposite is true.

In the on-site study, Shintaro Yamasaki, assistant professor of engineering technology at the Kitami Institute of Technology in Hokkaido, concluded that a landslide occurred on the hill toward the sea.

The landslide pushed up the seabed and, as a result, the sea bottom appeared above the surface, he said.  

THERE IS SOME DISPUTE OVER THIS AS EARTHQUAKE ACTIVITY WAS DETECTED IN THE NORTHERN AREA OF JAPAN ABOUT THE SAME TIME, SOMETHING THAT HAS CAUSED THE SEA FLOOR TO RISE IN MANY PLACES ACROSS THE GLOBE.

PERHAPS NOT AS DRAMATIC AS THE DECEMBER 2013 APPEARANCE OF A NEW AND GROWING VOLCANIC ISLAND, AS SEEN IN THE VIDEO BELOW, THIS LATEST RISE OF NEW LAND WAS STARTLING TO LOCAL RESIDENTS.