The sunken continent of Zealand is twice as old as scientists thought

At a depth of a kilometer in the South Pacific Ocean there is a piece of land measuring 5.2 million km². Scientists

they argue whether the sunken part of the land iscontinent since 2017. Despite this, scientists led by Nick Mortimer, a geologist at New Zealand's GNS Science, have suggested that the continent should have well-defined boundaries, cover an area of ​​more than 1 million km², rise above the surrounding ocean crust and have a thicker continental crust. Zealand meets all these requirements. If the world's oceans evaporated, Zealand would look like a clearly defined plateau above the ocean floor, scientists say. Thus, Mortimer calls Zealand “the thinnest, most submerged and smallest continent” on Earth.

Most (approximately 94%) of the continentlocated under the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the islands of the New Caledonia archipelago and the New Zealand islands of the North and South belong to the continental land. Scientists believe that Zeeland was completely flooded 23 million years ago. Researchers believe that it broke away from Australia 60-85 million years ago and from Antarctica between 130 and 85 million years ago.

The problem is that, until recently, samplesthe oldest crust and rock ever taken in Zealand was dated at a maximum of 500 million years. However, all other continents contain crust that is a billion years old or more. But a recent study found that a portion of the submerged continent is twice as old as geologists had previously assumed, which could bolster Mortimer's argument.

"The new study draws the line," said Rose Turnbull, a New Zealand geologist and co-author of the study, in a press release. "There is no longer any doubt that we live at the top of the continent."

The geologists behind the recent studystudied 169 pieces of Zeeland granite that were found near the southern tip of New Zealand. The results showed that the crust was once part of another hypothetical supercontinent known as Rodinia, which formed between 1.3 and 900 million years ago. In other words, the geological history of Zealand began much earlier than 500 million years ago.

Read more

Giant iceberg A74 collides with the coast of Antarctica

Fish with human teeth found in the United States

What is the Kessler effect, and also when and what will the collision of satellites in orbit lead to?