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Zealand – scientists have identified the boundaries of the lost continent 85 million years ago

New Expedition with Oceans Mapping Determines the Exact Boundaries of Zealand – a “lost continent” that sank about 85 million years ago.

About it writes edition LiveScience.

Scientists believe that Zeeland broke away from the supercontinent Gondwana between 79 million and 83 million years ago. With the exception of New Zealand and New Caledonia, this piece of continental crust is now at the bottom of the ocean. It is not the only piece of continental crust that has broken away from a large continent, but it is the largest at 4.9 million square kilometers, which is six times more than the next largest continental fragment, the microcontinent Madagascar.

Zeeland, according to scientists’ hypotheses, may have the status of a continent – since 2017, researchers have been working on a map of the lost continent, which is a rather difficult task – 94% of it is under water.

Scientists from the University of Queensland in Australia have compiled new data on the northwestern edge of Zealand, which is located in the Coral Sea in Queensland. The researchers spent 28 days aboard the Falkor, exploring 37,282 square kilometers of the region on a map.

“Our expedition collected topographic and magnetic data on the seabed to better understand how the narrow connection between the Tasmanian and Coral Seas formed in the Catota region, a narrow corridor between Australia and Zealand.” the university said in a statement.

The area between the Australian and Zealand plates is very complex. There are probably several submerged micro-continents there, all of which once broke away from the main continental masses when Australia liberated itself from Gondwana (the supercontinent that included today’s South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealand, Arabia, and the Indian subcontinent). These fragments of continental crust differ from the surrounding oceanic seabed crust, which is denser and thinner than the continental crust.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of Australia (NOAA), at least 10% of the seabed has been mapped thanks to modern sonar techniques that use sound to reveal underwater terrain. Scientists not only collected information about the relief, but also data on the strength of the magnetic field in this area. Since the oceanic crust and continental crust are formed from different concentrations of minerals with different magnetic signatures, this data will allow researchers to reconstruct the fractured fragments of Gondwana.

As “Apostrophe” reported, scientists have described a strange mammal, which was named “crazy beast” – he lived 66 million years ago. Scientists’ research provides new insights into the evolution of mammals from the southern supercontinent of Gondwana, which today has become Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula.

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