2 mysterious continents, possibly the first land or ocean bottoms of the early earth, have just been discovered… in the belly of our voracious planet.
A study just published in the scientific journal Journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems has revealed an incredible “forgotten world” underground, which is as old as the Earth itself: 4.5 billion years old. five years old.
Geologist Curtis Williams (University of California-Davis, USA) and colleagues used models to find the location and origin of volcanic rock samples collected from around the world. All have led them to the mysterious world of 2 solid rock continents buried in the deep mantle of the planet , hundreds of miles above the ground.
The Earth is very “gluttonous”, ie has extremely active plate tectonics, having swallowed its own terrestrial worlds many times – (photo: SHUTTERSTOCK).
These are possibly the oldest landmasses of the Earth . The study also shows that they may have formed from an ancient magma ocean, so they are extremely solid. These two continents may have been the solid land or bottom of the primordial ocean, having survived the young Earth’s tumultuous volcanic history and the collision with the hypothetical planet Theia, creating moon.
But in the end, it was the earth that ended this ancient land with a process of subduction: our planet literally swallowed part of its crust on its own ! These ancient lands were buried hundreds of miles deep and became the forgotten world for much of the planet’s history.
Meanwhile, the deep tectonic plates have had the opportunity to rise to the surface and form a new crust for our planet. During 4.5 billion years of history, the Earth has swallowed land many times , the most obvious evidence is the traces of oceans swallowed leading to continents recombining into supercontinents and then being swallowed up again. torn many times.
According to the researchers, this new discovery provides more data for geologists to better understand the ancient tectonic activities that contributed to the Earth’s appearance today.