Scientists have discovered new bases related to the mysterious continent Zealandia, located under the Pacific Ocean, which underwent a major upheaval about 35 to 50 million years ago.
Zealandia is likened to the lost kingdom of Atlantic. This is considered the 8th continent and also the smallest continent of the Earth.
According to the results published in the journal Geology, scientists now believe that the topographical variation may be related to the reactivation of ancient fault lines associated with the formation of the western Thai Ring of Fire. Binh Duong.
Image depicting the continent of Zealandia.
Scientists have long believed that Zealandia’s crust began to thin when it separated from Gondwana, an ancient supercontinent that included Antarctica and Australia, about 85 million years ago.
The American Geological Society also confirmed that fossils in drill bits collected in 2017 show that parts of Zealandia rose 1 to 2 kilometers while other parts settled around the same time before the entire continent sank. deep underwater.
“The dramatic changes in northern Zealandia, an area the size of India, coincided with the shifting of rock layers and the formation of underwater volcanoes across the western Pacific.” Rupert Sutherland, a geophysicist from the University of Victoria.
One of the amazing things about the scientists’ observations is that they reveal the early signs of the Ring of Fire almost simultaneously across the western Pacific.
Sutherland and colleagues have proposed a new mechanism called a “submergence event” that compares it to a large but super slow earthquake.
Scientists don’t know where or why, but something happened because of local motion, and when slips begin, like in an earthquake, the motion quickly spreads to adjacent parts of the system. fault and around the western Pacific Ocean.