Since last's week's session was a little, er, harrowing, I decided to pick a topic which had little room for any connection to evil forces, dire fates, or even Communism - the topography of the South China Sea. I honestly thought this would be a brief little disquisition about coral reefs or something, and was genuinely surprised to discover that there are enough febrile brains out in the world to make pretty much any subject, including this one, potential fodder for connections to evil forces, dire fates, and, yes, Communism.
I swear I didn't make any of this up . . . although some of it comes from sources more respectable than others:
Despite some dangerous patches, which I'll discuss in more detail later, the South China Sea supports important shipping routes for the merchant fleets and fishing vessels of Japan, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. More than 70 percent of Japanese oil imports pass through its waters. The Sea also contains valuable fishing resources, and several studies have suggested that the seabed may be rich in hydrocarbon resources. This has made it, at times, a hotly contested area, with parts of it, even apparently useless islands, claimed by many nations at various times. During the cold war, for example, it became a strange tangle of international games and claims in disputes between China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and America, among others; several times America claimed it had to save completely uninhabited islands from the spectre of Communism, as China in turn tried to rescue them from Western Imperialism.
Much of the South China Sea lies on a shallow continental shelf punctuated by numerous cays, shoals, reefs, islets and sandbars that lie just below or are just above the water's surface. Although portions of the sea are on a deep abyssal plain (which extends to a depth of more than 5,000 metres at the Palawan Trough off the coast of the Philippines), almost half of the Sea has a depth of less than 200 metres.
This has led some to postulate that the South China Sea is actually the site of mythical Atlantis, and that the cataclysm which destroyed it was in fact the rising of the sea level which accompanied the end of one of earth's several ice ages. Of course, "reputable" scientists view this theory with derision, and heap mockery and scorn on the few visionaries who issue dire warnings that the remnants of ancient and powerful civilizations schooled in both science and magic may yet exist on former mountain peaks which, after the great disaster, became islands.
Hmm.
Speaking of those islands, there are many. Most of them are small, and not all are on the water's surface. Marine charts appropriately label large areas of the South China Sea 'Dangerous Ground' because of the multitude of barely submerged hazards to ships. Some of them rise sharply from the South China Basin and frequently drop off abruptly to depths of 1,000 metres and sometimes to depths of 3,000 metres. Authorities vary in their estimation of the number of islets and other formations in the South China Sea. Many of the islands are too small to support significant habitation or economic endeavor.
It is also, incidentally, rumored by some that one of these islands was at one time the fabled "Mt. Atlas" cryptically referred to in some of the oldest Greek texts, and from which the myth of the Titan Atlas, tall enough to hold up the sky, may derive. Most of the myths surrounding the mountain have changed beyond all recognition, except for a general implication of some kind of highly destructive disaster, natural or otherwise, during which the mountain was reduced and the sky fell. Some believe that the pyramids of Egypt were initially representational of this mountain.
Hmm.
Some of the islands are volcanic in nature, part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" - a chain of volcanoes which surrounds the Ocean. Others are coral islands. A good many - including, I suspect, Grey Dragon Island - are a combination of both.
Coral reefs are, of course, masses of carbonate of lime built up from the seafloor by the accumulation of the skeletons of a profusion of animals and algae; eventually they rise to the surface of the water. Reef-building corals grow best in shallow, sunlit water, between the low-water mark and a depth of 11 metres, in water of normal salinity and with an annual maximum temperature between 22 and 28 degrees Centigrade. There are other kinds of corals, which grow in darker and deeper waters, but these form what are known as coral "banks" or, in some cases, "solitary" corals, rather than reefs. Coral formations surrounding an island in the warm shallow waters of the South China Sea would almost certainly be reefs. Corals can cause islands all by themselves; however, an island like Grey Dragon Island, which has a mountain on it, is highly unlikely to be completely a coral formation. Far more likely, the island was formed by millenia of volcanic activity, and then the corals took advantage of the shallow waters around it to make their home. If so, there is a chance that the volcano is still active, although of course the majority of such island volcanoes are now inactive.
Corals are rather like oases in oceans which are actually largely barren of life. They support a complex ecosystem which allows numerous life forms to flourish in their vicinity. They are also good sources of fossil petroleum and other natural resources. So if, hypthetically, there was some kind of advanced ancient undersea civilization which existed at the same time as, but unknown to, mankind, it seems highly likely that they would consider an area near a coral reef an excellent place to settle.
Hmm.
Pleasant dreams.
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