Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Researchers confirm the existence of a 'lost continent' under Mauritius
It’s really a fragment of a continent. From phys.org:
[center]
[/center]
Scientists have confirmed the existence of a "lost continent" under the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius that was left-over by the break-up of the supercontinent, Gondwana, which started about 200 million years ago.The piece of crust, which was subsequently covered by young lava during volcanic eruptions on the island, seems to be a tiny piece of ancient continent, which broke off from the island of Madagascar, when Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica split up and formed the Indian Ocean."We are studying the break-up process of the continents, in order to understand the geological history of the planet," says Wits geologist, Professor Lewis Ashwal, lead author on the paper "Archaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks establish ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius", published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.
By studying the mineral, zircon, found in rocks spewed up by lava during volcanic eruptions, Ashwal and his colleagues Michael Wiedenbeck from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and Trond Torsvik from the University of Oslo, guest scientist at GFZ, have found that remnants of this mineral were far too old to belong on the island of Mauritius.
"Earth is made up of two parts - continents, which are old, and oceans, which are "young". On the continents you find rocks that are over four billion years old, but you find nothing like that in the oceans, as this is where new rocks are formed," explains Ashwal. "Mauritius is an island, and there is no rock older than 9 million years old on the island. However, by studying the rocks on the island, we have found zircons that are as old as 3 billion years."
Zircons are minerals that occur mainly in granites from the continents. They contain trace amounts of uranium, thorium and lead, and due to the fact that they survive geological process very well, they contain a rich record of geological processes and can be dated extremely accurately.
more …
[/center]
Scientists have confirmed the existence of a "lost continent" under the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius that was left-over by the break-up of the supercontinent, Gondwana, which started about 200 million years ago.The piece of crust, which was subsequently covered by young lava during volcanic eruptions on the island, seems to be a tiny piece of ancient continent, which broke off from the island of Madagascar, when Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica split up and formed the Indian Ocean."We are studying the break-up process of the continents, in order to understand the geological history of the planet," says Wits geologist, Professor Lewis Ashwal, lead author on the paper "Archaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks establish ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius", published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.
By studying the mineral, zircon, found in rocks spewed up by lava during volcanic eruptions, Ashwal and his colleagues Michael Wiedenbeck from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and Trond Torsvik from the University of Oslo, guest scientist at GFZ, have found that remnants of this mineral were far too old to belong on the island of Mauritius.
"Earth is made up of two parts - continents, which are old, and oceans, which are "young". On the continents you find rocks that are over four billion years old, but you find nothing like that in the oceans, as this is where new rocks are formed," explains Ashwal. "Mauritius is an island, and there is no rock older than 9 million years old on the island. However, by studying the rocks on the island, we have found zircons that are as old as 3 billion years."
Zircons are minerals that occur mainly in granites from the continents. They contain trace amounts of uranium, thorium and lead, and due to the fact that they survive geological process very well, they contain a rich record of geological processes and can be dated extremely accurately.
more …
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
