The hidden eighth continent of Earth is no longer lost

Here’s what you will learn when you read this story:

• Zealand, considered a candidate for the eighth continent on Earth, was lost most of the sea.

• Geologists say they have now mapped for nearly two million square miles of the underwater land mass.

• The research team uses rocky samples from the seabed to analyze and date the underwater geology of Northern Zealand, the last piece of the Zealand puzzle.

---

Zealand was as promised as the eighth continent on Earth. Well, it happened – up to about 95 percent of the table sank under the ocean.

While the majority of Zealand can never host residents-on-ground, not grounding continent is no longer just lost. Researchers have ended with the mapping of the northern two -thirds from Zealand, completing the documentation of almost two million square miles from the submerged land mass.

In a study published in TectonicsResearchers at GNS Science of New Zealand document their process of dredging rock samples from the Fairway ridge to the coral sea to analyze the scale of geochemical and to understand the underwater composition of Zealand.

Zealand’s history is quite closely linked to the ancient Gondwana supercontinent, which has split hundreds of millions of years ago. Zealand followed a suit – early 80 million years ago, according to the latest theory. But unlike neighboring Australia or much of Antarctica, Zealand has largely sank, leaving only a small part of what many geologists think should still be called on the eighth continent.

New Zealand is the most recognizable part of the water over Zealand, although several other islands in the vicinity are also part of the maybe-continent in question.

This study, led by Nick Mortimer, dugs the northern two -thirds of the submerged area, pulling pebbles and cobblestone sandstone, fine -grained sandstone, mud, bioclastic limestone and basalt lava from different time periods. By meeting the rocks and interpreting magnetic anomalies, the researchers wrote, they were able to map the main geological units in Northern Zealand. “This work is completing an offshore intelligence geological mapping of the entire continent of Zealand,” they said.

The researchers discovered the sandbox about 95 million years since the end of the chalk and a mixture of granite and volcanic pebbles of up to 130 million years in the early chalk. The basalts are more new – they are about 40 million years old and from the eocene period.

Along with the mapping, the newspaper says that the internal deformation of both Zealand and Western Antarctica shows that stretching has led to a crack in the style of the slabs that welcome ocean water to form the Tasmanian Sea. Then, a few million years later, the further drilling of Antarctica continued to stretch the crust of Zealand until it was flushed enough to break and seal to a large extent the underwater fate of Zealand. This contradicts the prevailing theory of the breakdown of a shock slip.

The team believes according to Scientificthat the stretch direction varies to 65 degrees, which may have allowed widespread thinning of the continental cortex.

As scientists in New Zealand can tell you just because Zealand is largely underwater, it does not make it less than a geological miracle.

Take the problem

Take the problem

Take the problem

Take the problem

Take the problem

Take the problem

Take the problem

Take the problem

Take the problem

You may like and