Mounting Evidence Suggests a Remote Australian Region Was Once Part of North America
Source: ScienceAlert
Mounting Evidence Suggests a Remote Australian Region Was Once Part of North America
It really is a small world after all.
MICHELLE STARR 22 JAN 2018
Geologists tend to agree that, billions of years ago, the configuration of the continents was very different. How exactly they all fit together and when is a bit more of a puzzle, the pieces of which can be put together by studying rocks and fossils.
Now researchers have found a series of rocks that show something surprising: part of Australia could have once been connected to part of Canada on the North American continent, around 1.7 billion years ago.
Actually, the discovery that the two continents were once connected isn't hugely surprising. Speculation about such a connection has existed since the late 1970s, when a paper proposed a connection dating back to the continent of Rodinia, around 1.13 billion years ago. However, an exact time and location for the connection has remained under debate.
Found in Georgetown, a small town of just a few hundred people in the north east of Australia, the rocks are unlike other rocks on the Australian continent.
Instead, they show similarities to ancient rocks found in Canada, in the exposed section of the continental crust called the Canadian Shield.
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Read more: https://www.sciencealert.com/canadian-shield-australia-rocks-nuna-columbia-supercontinent
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