<p>A new island has emerged off North Carolina's Cape Hatteras, with speed that has surprised observers and tourists alike.</p>

A new island has emerged off North Carolina's Cape Hatteras, with speed that has surprised observers and tourists alike.

Photograph by Chad Koczera

New Island Appears Off U.S. Coast

The sandy beach is littered with whale bones and ribs of old shipwrecks.

It appeared out of nowhere in April just off North Carolina's Outer Banks—a new land mass poking through the surf, a brand new Atlantic Ocean island.

Along this dynamic stretch of sea, where the cold, southbound Labrador Current churns and crashes into warmer Gulf Stream waters, it is not unusual for patches of ground to emerge and then quickly subside. These are, after all, some of North America's roughest waters, a shallow region of swirling tides, hidden shoals, and harsh winds known to sailors as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

Yet even for this place, this new formation is of a scale rarely seen. The crescent-shaped spit is close to a mile long. At its widest point, this island reaches a

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