【古地圖小島不存在 墨西哥丟掉不少外海油藏】 2009/06/24 （法新社墨西哥市23日電） 一項研究報告論定，古代墨西哥灣地圖上標出的不毛彈丸之 地貝爾梅哈（Bermeja）島，其實並不存在。 少了80平方公里的一座島嶼也許看似小事，但墨西哥國立自治大學（National Autonomous Universityof Mexico）的這項研究卻有較大的現實後果。 這表示，墨西哥在墨西哥灣所擁有的主權範圍較先前的想像縮小，進而使其有權開採的能 源也減少。 國立自治大學的新聞稿指出，這項多學科調查結果確定，「所謂的貝爾梅哈島根本不存在 ，也無法推論出其在座標上的確定位置」，而這是指古代墨西哥灣西部地圖所畫出的座標 。 墨西哥國會下院要求進行這項研究，以劃定該國200海里經濟活動區。 如今沒有貝爾梅哈島，墨西哥在海灣中最凸出的參考點是阿拉克蘭斯（Alacranes）群島 ，而這將使墨西哥在灣區的主權範圍縮小，能開採的油藏也為之減少。（譯者：中央社張 佑之） http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/090624/19/1lv92.html _____________________________________________________________________ Mexico vows to keep looking for 'lost' island By MARK STEVENSON MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico vowed to keep looking for a mysterious island that could extend its offshore oil claims after university researchers said they couldn't find it. "The island doesn't exist" in the area where it was shown on maps, a National Autonomous University of Mexico study concluded after conducting studies with underwater sensing devices and aerial reconnaissance in the area. "Isla Bermeja" appeared on maps from the 1700s as a speck of land off the northwest coast of the Yucatan peninsula. A group of Mexican legislators hoped the island would help their decade-long effort to fend off what they describe as U.S. encroachment on their nation's oil claims in the Gulf of Mexico. Bermeja had been shown lying farther off Mexico's coast than other, confirmed islets, possibly extending the nation's claim by about 55 nautical miles into an area in the middle of the Gulf that lies between U.S. and Mexican territorial waters, said Elias Cardenas, the head of Mexico's congressional Maritime Committee. That area, which lies beyond both countries' 200-mile territorial limits, is believed to hold rich oil deposits under the sea floor. Cardenas said he hopes to explore other spots where the island might lie, and plans to ask for more funding for oceanographic studies to help solve the mystery. "There are four other possible sites where it might have been," Cardenas said, referring to versions the island might have sunk or been submerged. He said the matter was urgent because the two countries are expected to formalize an agreement on drilling rights in the area soon. "Right now, the big fight is for oil," he said. How an island could have been listed where none existed remains a mystery, though old maps often carried over inaccurate information from earlier charts. Mexican have long bounced around conspiracy theories about the affair. "There are some who say the United States bombed it," journalist Carlos Loret wrote in a column in El Universal newspaper. "Others say it was sunk by global warming, and others think it was an earthquake." Cardenas dismissed the bombing rumors as "fantasy." "That would have been something that would have been very noticeable," he said. http://tinyurl.com/l8qmoy --

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