continents

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'Lost Continent' That Broke Off From Australia Is Found
Geologists Have Found
'Lost Continent' of Argoland
new study

Geologists Have Found 'Lost Continent' of Argoland

Land that broke away from ancient Australia splintered into massive shards

(Newser) - Before you congratulate yourself on finding your lost keys, know that scientists have located an entire lost continent, piecing together a longstanding geological puzzle. Millions of years ago, a strip of western Australia broke off into a microcontinent known as Argoland due to shifting tectonic plates, IFL Science reports....

Scientists Finish Mapping Earth's Eighth Continent
Too Much Stretching Doomed
Earth's Eighth Continent
NEW STUDY

Too Much Stretching Doomed Earth's Eighth Continent

Ultra-thin Zealandia survived an island before it was drowned some 25M years ago

(Newser) - Scientists have finished mapping what has been called Earth's eighth continent , revealing how it formed and why it largely sank to the depths of the ocean. Above the waves, all that's left of the continent known as Zealandia are the South Pacific islands of New Caledonia and the...

Lost Continent Explains a 34M-Year-Old Extinction
Lost Continent Explains
a 34M-Year-Old Extinction
NEW STUDY

Lost Continent Explains a 34M-Year-Old Extinction

Researchers discover Balkanatolia, an ancient island turned land bridge

(Newser) - About 34 million years ago, native fauna disappeared from Western Europe, as mammals from Asia took over. The extinction, known as the Grande Coupure or "great break," might as well have been called the great puzzle. For decades, researchers have been unable to explain how animals from eastern...

Scientists Piece Together Hints of a Lost Continent
Scientists Piece Together
Hints of a Lost Continent
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Scientists Piece Together Hints of a Lost Continent

'Greater Adria' disappeared beneath Europe eons ago

(Newser) - A lost continent isn't quite as lost as it used to be. Scientists have painstakingly fit together clues spread across Europe to unravel the story of Greater Adria, reports Live Science . This continent was about the size of Greenland when it rammed into what's now southern Europe about...

Giant Crack in Africa Suggests an 8th Continent Is Coming

Rift in Kenya means Africa might split in 2, but it will take millions of years

(Newser) - Some 250 million years ago, Earth had one continent—Pangaea. Today, there are seven, and in another 50 million years or so, there could be eight. That's according to geologists studying a massive crack that recently appeared in southwestern Kenya, taking out homes and a section of highway, after...

Scientists Say They've Discovered an 8th Continent

Zealandia is two-thirds the size of Australia but 94% underwater

(Newser) - Every elementary school student knows there are seven continents. Or are there? After more than 20 years of investigation, researchers now say there is an eighth continent: Zealandia. The Christian Science Monitor reports Zealandia is 1.9 million square miles—about two-thirds the size of Australia—but is 94% underwater,...

3B-Year-Old 'Lost Continent' Is Found
Ancient 
'Lost Continent'
Is Found
STUDY SAYS

Ancient 'Lost Continent' Is Found

It hides under Mauritius: scientists

(Newser) - Before the various land masses that are now Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica went their separate ways some 200 million years ago, they were part of the supercontinent Gondwana. So, too, was a "lost continent" scientists say is now hiding beneath the island nation of Mauritius. In a video...

'Lost Continent' Detected Under Indian Ocean

'Mauritia' believed to have sunk millions of years ago

(Newser) - The remains of an ancient continent ripped apart by plate tectonics tens of millions of years ago may lie under the Indian Ocean, researchers say. Scientists who analyzed beach sand on the island of Mauritius found tiny crystals of zirconium silicate that were hundreds of millions of years older than...

'Frog From Hell' Fossil Turns up in Madagascar

'Beelzebufo' munched on baby dinosaurs

(Newser) - Fossil hunters digging in Madagascar have discovered a 70 million-year-old, 10 pound ancestor of the horned frog. Over twice as large as its modern-day descendants, the  "slightly squashed beach-ball" shaped creature probably lunched on small lizards and baby dinosaurs, and has earned the charming nicknames "frog from hell"...

Earth's Mystery Core Plumbed
Earth's Mystery Core Plumbed

Earth's Mystery Core Plumbed

Japanese geophysicist floats theory of lifecycle for Earth's plates

(Newser) - Climate change has sparked heated debate about the Earth’s surface, but a controversial new theory is directing scientists to its core, Der Spiegel reports. To explain why contintental plates drift on the surface of the Earth's molten mantle, Maruyama Shigenori, a leading geophysicist, argues that continents actually have life...

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