In temperate climate lakes, floating islands are quite common. Basically, a big chunk of peat breaks loose from the bottom, and floats to the top. As the top dries, grass and shrubs will grow on it-even fair sized trees.
Anything similar in the ocean? How about a big mass of volcanic pumice(lighter than water0could this form a floating island?
Never heard of that happening. There have been many proposals for large artificial islands, though - I think Abu Dhabi is doing something along those lines now.
Well, there’s the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but that’s probably not what you had in mind.
There are also flocks of rubber ducks travelling the oceans. In 1992, a container carrier lost about 30,000 rubber ducks in the Pacific. They divided into several flocks of variable size drifting across the seas since then, allowing oceanographers who observe their movements to draw conclusions about oceanic currents.
I don’t know if Abu Dhabi is, but Dubai definitely is building lots of artificial islands.
I believe I’ve read that in the Dead Sea (possibly Sea of Galilee too), natural accumulations of asphaltic tar (pitch) will break loose from the bottom and float to the surface. In ancient times these were quite sought after because they could be used to waterproof boats by sealing their seams.
They occur in fiction. There’s a Carl Barks-written Uncle Scrooge story about a floating coral island (Walt Disney Comics and Stories #226, July 1959) .
And Jules Verne wrote a novel about one (which I still haven’t read) called Propellor Island.It’s Man-Made
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/v/jules-verne/propeller-island.htm
The titular The Giant Raft of another Verne novel is a similar man-made island.
The oceans are salt water. Grass, shrubs, & trees generally can’t survive on that.
Of course much of California is what’s referred to as accreted terrain, chunks of island arcs or remnants of a continental tectonic plate that have rafted, not on ocean waves but on an oceanic plate, toward a subduction zone where they slam (geologically speaking) into the continental crust of another, in this case the Western (and on to the Pacific) Cordillera. They usually retain their unique geologic history and juxtaposed to their new surroundings are also called exotics.
Not quite a “floating island” in the sense you’re looking for, but they do exist and have a fascinating history.
As ever, I shall shoot my mouth off without having any idea what I’m talking about.
Even if salinity killing the plants weren’t an issue, there’s no way a floating island as described could last more than momentarily against the wave action in the open sea. But what if we approach this differently? There are extensive areas that have grasslands, forests, even cities, on top of…ice. SO, there’s a weird weather set-up such that a monster iceberg breaks off and floats away, only to survive for some inordinate amount of time due to really cold currents. Meanwhile, a volcano deposits a thick layer of ash in the region, covering the berg with both topside insulation and much needed topsoil. After a few million years of weather that cannot be explained by any rational process, the big ol’ iceberg looks like a temperate version of the Galapagos.
It’s more likely than those floating-in-the-air islands on Yes album covers.
Man made islands nearly occurred in real life, too. Project Habakukk was a British WWII proposal for a giant floating iceberg/aircraft carrier.