There's a Lost Continent Hiding Beneath Europe

[Eugene]

Source: LiveScience

There's a Lost Continent Hiding Beneath Europe

By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer 2 days ago Planet Earth

"Greater Adria" existed hundreds of millions of years ago after it broke off from the supercontinent Gondwana.

There's a lost continent hidden below southern Europe. And researchers have created the most detailed reconstruction of it yet.

The lost continent "Greater Adria" emerged about 240 million years ago, after it broke off from Gondwana, a southern supercontinent made up of Africa, Antarctica, South America, Australia and other major landmasses, as Science magazine reported.

Greater Adria was large, extending from what is now the Alps all the way to Iran, but not all of it was above the water. That means it was likely a string of islands or archipelagos, said lead author Douwe van Hinsbergen, the chair in global tectonics and paleogeography in the Department of Earth Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. It would have been a "good scuba diving region."

Hinsbergen and his team spent a decade collecting and analyzing rocks that used to be part of this ancient continent. The mountain belts where these Greater Adrian rocks are found span about 30 different countries, Hinsbergen told Live Science. "Every country has their own geological survey and their own maps and their own stories and their own continents," he said. With this study, "we brought that all together in one big picture."

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Read more: https://www.livescience.com/ancient-lost-continent-beneath-europe.html


Greater Adria as it existed 140 million years ago, before sliding beneath what is now southern europe. The darker green areas depict the land above the water and the lighter green, the land below.(Image: © Douwe van Hinsbergen)

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Related: Geologists uncover history of lost continent buried beneath Europe (Science)

[Bayard]

1. Fascinating

Thanks for posting.