Free Republic

he Chinese military has said it chased off a U.S. warship near a disputed set of islands in the South China Sea, but the Navy contended the vessel was acting within international law. Senior Colonel Li Huamin, the spokesman for the Chinese People's Liberation Army's Southern Theater Command, said in a statement Thursday by official military outlets that the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin "illegally intruded" into territorial waters near the Paracel Islands, known to China as the Xisha Islands, earlier that day. As a result, Li said Chinese sea and air units were dispatched to "warn off" and...

Here we report preliminary evidence from Xisha Islands in the South China Sea for a large tsunami around AD 1024. Sand layers in lake sediment cores and their geochemical characteristics indicate a sudden deposition event around AD 1024, temporally consistent with a written record of a disastrous event characterized by high waves in AD 1076. Heavy coral and shell fossils, which are older than AD 1024, deposited more than 200 meters into the island, further support the occurrence of a high-energy event such as a tsunami or an unusually large storm. Our results underscore the importance of acknowledging and understanding the...