How did you draw the map?
A team of researchers from the United States, New Zealand, Denmark, Australia and other countries worked to map the continent of Zealandia using rock samples from under the sea and using geophysical mapping methods.
For geologists, a continent is a large area of similar granite or igneous stones, forming what is known as the continental bed, with another element being metamorphic rocks that form in tectonically active areas, and sediments that are deposited by erosion of the Earth’s surface.
These conditions apply to Zealandia, but due to the difficulty of reaching it, not much is known about its geological nature. However, scientists were able to obtain samples of its rocks, which contributed to drawing an accurate map of the continent.
The new map, published in the scientific journal “Tectonics,” revealed that the continent “expanded and tore apart” as a result of tectonic forces.
Until 2017, the world was divided into 7 continents, but a discovery made in that year changed what was considered a given, as it appeared that there was an eighth continent, Zealandia.
Scientists have settled on the existence of 7 continents in the world since 1820. However, for many decades scientists expected the existence of an eighth continent, but they did not have evidence of that.
The year 2019 witnessed the drawing of the first geological map of the continent of Zealandia by a group of scientists of different nationalities, but it was not completely accurate.
But in September 2023, a group of international researchers released what they say is the most accurate map of the continent, which is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean near Australia.
Information about the “submerged continent”
- Its area is 5 million square kilometers under water, equivalent to two-thirds of the area of Australia.
- It is located at a depth of about 1.2 km.
- All that remains is a mountain range with two islands in New Zealand, and some isolated peaks that have become small ocean islands.
- They disappeared long before humans appeared.
- It is believed that this continent was formed 83 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period.
- However, the prevailing belief among scientists is that its journey began 100 million years before that date, when the giant continent of Gondwana began to disintegrate, knowing that this continent contained most of the current land areas in one block.
#Zealandia. #drawing #accurate #map #lost #continent