Zealandia: Sunken 8th Continent Reveals Its Buried Secrets

[Judi Lynn]

By Tia Ghose, Senior Writer | September 27, 2017 01:21pm ET

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A proposed world map showing the eighth continent Zealandia. Though most of this continent is submerged beneath the ocean, scientists say it has all the geologic hallmarks of a separate continent.
Credit: Nick Mortimer/GNS Science


A journey to plumb the remote ocean depths has revealed that Earth does indeed have an eighth continent.

A nine-week voyage took scientists from around the world to drill and explore the seafloor off New Zealand and Australia. They found evidence of land-based fossils, revealing that the ancient landmass wasn't always buried beneath the waves.

"Zealandia, a sunken continent long lost beneath the oceans, is giving up its 60 million-year-old secrets through scientific ocean drilling," Jamie Allan, program director in the U.S. National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, said in a statement. [Photos: The World's Weirdest Geological Formations]


Zealandia: Sunken 8th Continent Reveals Its Buried Secrets
A proposed world map showing the eighth continent Zealandia. Though most of this continent is submerged beneath the ocean, scientists say it has all the geologic hallmarks of a separate continent.
Credit: Nick Mortimer/GNS Science
A journey to plumb the remote ocean depths has revealed that Earth does indeed have an eighth continent.

A nine-week voyage took scientists from around the world to drill and explore the seafloor off New Zealand and Australia. They found evidence of land-based fossils, revealing that the ancient landmass wasn't always buried beneath the waves.

"Zealandia, a sunken continent long lost beneath the oceans, is giving up its 60 million-year-old secrets through scientific ocean drilling," Jamie Allan, program director in the U.S. National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, said in a statement. [Photos: The World's Weirdest Geological Formations]

Lost 8th continent

Earlier this year, scientists argued that the known seven continents had a long-lost brother – Zealandia, a narrow strip of land that encompasses New Zealand and lies off the east coast of Australia, and whose landmass is mostly 3,280 feet (1,000 meters) below sea level beneath the ocean's surface. Among the evidence for Zealandia: The crust that makes up Zealandia is much shallower than the surrounding oceanic crust, and its geologic makeup looks more like continental versus oceanic crust. What's more, a narrow strip of oceanic crust separates Australia from Zealandia, which suggests the two landmasses were separate.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/60538-zealandia-eighth-continent-once-above-ocean.html?utm_source=notification

[Control-Z]

1. This is so incredibly cool!

Thank you for posting!!!

[Fullduplexxx]

2. Atlantis?

[RandomAccess]

3. Or Lemuria?