Geologists Have Discovered ‘Misplaced Continent’ of Argoland

Earlier than you congratulate your self on discovering your misplaced keys, know that scientists have situated a whole misplaced continent, piecing collectively a longstanding geological puzzle. Thousands and thousands of years in the past, a strip of western Australia broke off right into a microcontinent generally known as Argoland resulting from shifting tectonic plates, IFL Science studies. After seven years of monitoring what occurred to that 3,107-mile-long stretch of land, geologists from Utrecht College say it broke off into shards, which are actually embedded below land and sea. “The scenario in Southeast Asia may be very totally different from locations like Africa and South America, the place a continent broke neatly into two items,” says creator Eldert Advokaat. “Argoland splintered into many various shards.”

The examine printed within the journal Gondwana Analysis noticed the Argo Abyssal Plain off the northwest coast of Australia. The construction of that deep ocean basin signaled that Argoland moved upward, towards southeast Asia. However as an alternative of 1 giant land mass, the land cut up into what scientists are calling an “Argopelago.” “We had been actually coping with islands of data, which is why our analysis took so lengthy. We spent seven years placing the puzzle collectively,” Advokaat says. Per a Utrecht College launch at Phys.org, some elements of Argoland are below sea stage, whereas different items run beneath the jungles of Indonesia and Myanmar. It resembles submerged continents like Zeelandia, which lies east of Australia, and Larger Adria in southern Europe, which is now nearly utterly sunk into Earth’s mantel.

“If continents can dive into the mantle and disappear totally, with out leaving a geological hint on the Earth’s floor, then we would not have a lot of an concept of what the Earth might have regarded within the geological previous,” says Utrecht College geologist Douwe van Hinsbergen. “It might be nearly unattainable to create dependable reconstructions of former supercontinents and the Earth’s geography in foregone eras.” Learning the historical past of our shifting continents over time supplies perception into how mountains had been fashioned, how tectonic plates transfer, and the way biodiversity and local weather modifications. (Learn extra geology tales).