This has got to be of use in a fic somehow ...
Pacific's Sandy Island found not to exist
"Geologists from the University of Sydney have discovered that a 26km-wide land mass called Sandy Island that can be seen on charts and maps - including Google Maps - does not in fact exist. An island was thought to exist between Australia and the French territory of New Caledonia, but there is no satellite image of it. Geologist Sabin Zahirovic says it is possible that human error during the process of digitising maps created Sandy Island."
ETA: Hm, from a bit of curious Googling it seems like relatively old news then? Still a good story ...
"Geologists from the University of Sydney have discovered that a 26km-wide land mass called Sandy Island that can be seen on charts and maps - including Google Maps - does not in fact exist. An island was thought to exist between Australia and the French territory of New Caledonia, but there is no satellite image of it. Geologist Sabin Zahirovic says it is possible that human error during the process of digitising maps created Sandy Island."
ETA: Hm, from a bit of curious Googling it seems like relatively old news then? Still a good story ...