“Balkanatolia” – what sounds like a houseplant is considered a scientific sensation: It is a forgotten continent that provides many insights.
PARIS – What happened on our planet millions of years ago is still partly a mystery to science. And so the news of the discovery of a new continent quickly made the rounds. His name: “Balkanatolia”. The special feature: A very special flora and fauna lived on the landmass between Asia and Europe. Traces of this can still be seen today in the form of fossil finds in the Balkans and Turkey.
The research team around the scientist Alexis Licht is considered to be the discoverer. The team wants to publish its research results in March in the journal “Earth Science Reviewspublish, announced the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) on its website.
Forgotten Continent “Balkanatolia”: Scientific Findings About Today’s World
What researchers have been thinking for a long time: Why have fossils been found again and again in the Balkans and in Turkey that indicate the presence of Asian mammals? It is amazing that the age of the fossils is an indication of their life before the so-called “Grande Coupure”, i.e. the great exchange of fauna around 34 million years ago.
Up to this event there had been very different animal and plant species in western Europe and eastern Asia and the two different landmasses. “We know that Western Europe was colonized by Asian species about 34 million years ago, leading to a major renewal of vertebrate fauna and the extinction of their endemic mammals,” says scientist Alexis Licht. The fossil finds date back to the 19th century – and some of the species found could not be assigned to either Asia or Europe.
Scientist Licht: “This mammalian fauna represents a unique mix of endemic species, so the region must have formed a single landmass, separated from neighboring continents.” According to this, the continent of Balkanatolia would have separated Europe and Asia around 50 million years ago. By the way: Elsewhere a giant fossil of a primeval monster discovered – the skull alone weighs a ton.
“So Atlantis really existed” – what the net thinks about the forgotten continent of Balkanatolia
The reactions on the net are mixed, with a comparison being made more often. “So there really was Atlantis,” says a user on Facebook, cheering the news with a bold and, of course, unproven thesis. Another writes: “An old continent – so what? I would be more interested in Atlantis. But hey, don’t complain.” Another Facebook user muses: “The world was different then and will continue to change.” Someone else wonders: “How could you forget a continent like that for 40 million years?”
Where is Atlantis? Did the Greek island kingdom really exist?
Myths and rumors have kept mankind busy for more than 2000 years – but nobody has been able to prove the existence of Atlantis so far. The Greek philosopher Plato first mentioned the island kingdom in the middle of the 4th century BC.
Plato describes it as a sea power that had conquered parts of Europe and Africa from its main island “beyond the Pillars of Heracles”. Two rocky mountains that border the Strait of Gibraltar are considered the “Pillars of Heracles”. According to the philosopher, Atlantis perished in 9600 BC as a result of a natural catastrophe within “a single day and an unfortunate night”. Ancient historians and philologists today largely assume that it was Plato’s invention.
Incidentally, the end of Balkanatolia is attributed to the lowering of the sea level a good 35 million years ago. Science assumes that this was caused by the formation of glaciers – and ultimately the land masses connected with each other.
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