Scientists believe they have evidence: “the lost continent” out-of-Mauritius – Newspaper.en

(Dagbladet): the Earth is under constant change.

Every day, change it up little by little, and in line with the time to form and dissolve continents. Now claiming a new research group to have discovered a completely new one.

It writes CNN. According to the channel was a discovery of a ancient minerals made in The indian ocean off Mauritius.

the Minerals will be too old to belong to the african island.

- There are no rocks older than 9 million years in Mauritius. But when we studied the findings on the island, we have discovered zircon (a mineraltype) as old as three billion years, ” says professor Lewis Ashwal, according to the website of the University of the Witwatersrand.

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the Remains of superkontinent

the Professor is lead author for the research paper published in Nature Communications. In the article, conclude the researchers, “Mauritia” was a remnant of superkontinentet every Sunday.

the Latter continent was formed more than 500 million years ago, and began to break up around 300 million years later.

“The new results show that this split was not a simple divider, but rather a complex fragmentation which created several kontinentdeler of varying size,” says Ashwal about the discovery’s importance.

Supporting research from 2013

Furthermore, informing the researchers that the newly discovered continent has been named “Mauritia”.

They also believe that the discovery supports a research project done in 2013.

Then found a research group, with, among others, Bjørn Jamtveit of the University of Oslo, similar minerals on a beach in the area.

Also when the concluded the researchers that they had found the remains of a lost continent.

French skepticism

the Discovery was met with skepticism by some. Among them was Jérôme Dyment, a geologist at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics.

He believed that the ancient minerals could have come to the beach a skipslast or other human activity. Other suggested explanations have been that they had been transported to the beach by wind and waves.

- To find zircon in sand is one thing, finding them in a rock is something else, ” said Dyment at the time, according to National Geographic.

Rejects the wind and the waves

Now, say researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand that they have done just that.

- The fact that we have found ancient zirkoner in a rock, supporting the results from 2013, and refutes the explanation that the minerals may have come with the wind or waves, claims Lewis Ashwal about the work done with the help of, among other things, the geophysicist Trond Torsvik at the University of Oslo.

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