I heard on FoxNews.Com that Scientists have located an entire micro-continent in the Indian Ocean that detached itself approximately 60 million years ago. This was so fascinating to me that I could shut my eyes and almost vision what the micro-continent looked like.
FoxNews.Com reported the micro-continent has been hiding all these years near a well-known tourist area off the southeastern coast of Africa at the Islands Reunion and Mauritius. Scientists say that when Madagascar and India drifted apart during the Precambrian era, a fragment known as Mauritia detached at that time.
Can you just imagine vacationing on these islands and being aware of the existence of a micro-continent lying below its lands and they’ve been there for millions of years? To me, this would be a marvelous feeling to be walking on land and knowing there’s an existence of an unknown land lying below in wait for exploration. I’d love to be able to see this continent mysteriously appear above a massive ocean to expose itself to the world.
FoxNews.Com reported the micro-continent was found hiding under huge masses of lava. Geoscientists from Norway, South Africa, Britain and Germany have published a study suggesting, based on a study of lava sand grains from the beach of Mauritius, the existence of further fragments.
Have you ever thought about how many other masses of land might be lying beneath the earth and what precious resources they might contain? All of this is mind-boggling and it causes me to explode with imaginations.
The report stated that sand grains contained semi-precious zircons aged between 660 million and 1.9 billion years; and this explains the point of the zircons being carried by lava as it was being pushed through subjacent continental crust of this age.
Isn’t it informative to know these types of studies are taking place? I don’t know about you but as for me, it’s hard to vision sand grains being studied that date back millions and possibly close to 2 billions of years. I consider this to be an amazing interesting study for those who do this type of research.
Geoscientists studies reported, zirons extracted from the beach sands are normally found in a continental crust; and according to Prof. Trond Torsvik, of the University from Oslo, Norway, they’re old in age, as he stated to the BBC.
Torsvik’s study also stated that these micro-continents found in oceans occur a lot more frequently than previously thought.
The report stated these break-up’s of continents are associated with mantle plumes which are giant bubbles formed of hot rock that eventually rise from the deep mantle, softening tectonic plates below and the plates break apart of major hot spots.
This causes me to wonder about powerful underground and under-water earthquakes shifting the earth’s surface and under-water volcanic eruptions spilling hot lava onto ocean floors throughout the world and we know this makes for lots of formations to take place.
It was reported that Bernhard Steinberger of the GFZ German Research Centre helped in finding the hotspot trail, explaining how and where the fragments ended up in the Indian Ocean; and also the dating method was supplemented by a recalculation of plate tectonics.
Steinberger stated, "Continent fragments continue to amble about over the Reunion plume and this explains how they were covered by volcanic rock."
I found this to be educational and I wanted to pass this onto readers because it can be an educational tool for explaining to children how new continents are formed in the world.
Barbara Kasey Smith wrote this article based on a FoxNews.Com report and followed up with their FoxNews.Com/article.
Source:
FoxNews.Com