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In the world of science, researchers have recently crafted the most accurate map to date of <keyword id="4182442" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="zealandia" source="Orion">Zealandia</keyword>, a peculiar submerged landmass often referred to as the "8th <keyword id="168363" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="continent" source="Orion">continent</keyword>".<br /><br />However, the concept of continents becomes a bit hazy when viewed through a global perspective. Different cultures and disciplines have varying interpretations of what constitutes a continent. For example, Indians recognize seven continents, while Russians argue for six, merging <keyword id="28249" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="europe" source="Orion">Europe</keyword> and Asia. Even the Olympics have their unique take on continents, with five coloured rings symbolising continents, excluding Antarctica.<br /><br />Nevertheless, when viewed from a geological standpoint, continents align with the massive land masses of continental crust that rest on tectonic plates. Yet, <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword> also hosts smaller chunks of crust known as "microcontinents".<br /><br />Now, let's journey back in time, about 23 million years ago, when one of these microcontinents, Zealandia, sank beneath the <keyword id="90495" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="pacific-ocean" source="Orion">Pacific Ocean</keyword>, leaving only 6% above water, which is now modern-day <keyword id="22501" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="new-zealand" source="Orion">New Zealand</keyword> and some nearby islands. Remarkably, Zealandia, despite being six times larger than the next-largest microcontinent, still shares the same designation.<br /><br />Zealandia spans approximately 4.9 million square kilometres, making it half the size of Australia, twice as large as Greenland, and bigger than the Indian subcontinent. While many geologists argue that Zealandia meets all the criteria for full continent status, it lacks even the modest "sub" prefix in its name.<br /><br />But beyond debates about titles, experts have been diligently working to define Zealandia's boundaries and geological structure, continually refining maps as new research methods and findings emerge. This task is exceptionally challenging due to the extensive submersion of the microcontinent.<br /><br />Fortunately, recent rock samples retrieved from the <keyword id="53745" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ocean" source="Orion">ocean</keyword> floor in the region have significantly contributed to this effort, resulting in the most precise map of Zealandia to date. These mapping efforts involve the analysis of rock and sediment samples obtained from drilling sites and the examination of seismic and magnetic data. These investigations reveal geological features such as subduction zones and slips, essential for establishing clearer tectonic boundaries.<br /><br />Considering all available evidence, scientists speculate that the region's intriguing magnetic anomalies, particularly the Campbell Magnetic Anomaly, likely formed during the breakup of <keyword id="26341" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="gondwana" source="Orion">Gondwana</keyword> — an ancient supercontinent encompassing various landmasses, including India and Zealandia. This event eventually led to the formation of Zealandia's oceanic floor.<br /><br />The findings of this study have been published in<em> <keyword id="1611452" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="tectonics" source="Orion">Tectonics</keyword></em> and can be accessed <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2023TC007961" data-type="tilCustomLink">here</a>.<br />

Mapping Zealandia: Scientists chart the tectonic secrets of Earth’s sunken 8th continent

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Zealandia broke apart from the supercontinent Gondwana millions of years ago then sank.</li><li>It's hard to study an underwater landmass, but researchers say they've created a complete map.</li></ul><p>After decades of work, a team of scientists has finally completed a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/maps-reveal-eighth-continent-zealandia-underwater-2020-6">map of Zealandia</a>. It's helping them unlock the secrets of this lost continent's mysterious past.</p><p>Zealandia is sometimes called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hidden-continent-zealandia-under-new-zealand-age-map-2021-7">Earth's eighth continent</a>. It stretches over 1.9 million square miles — about half the size of Australia. </p><p>But it was hidden, lost for millennia, because 95% of it is underwater. That makes it extremely difficult to map since most of its volcanoes, valleys, rifts, and mountains lie at the bottom of the ocean near New Zealand.</p><p>But that didn't deter scientist Nick Mortimer, who led the team that's been studying Zealandia for over 20 years. </p><p>In a new study, the team finished mapping the final piece of the continent, the northeast corner. </p><p>Combined with their data from years of research, they've mapped the continent's surface features like plateaus and ridges. As well as the boundary where the continent and ocean usually meet — a feature that's largely unknown for other continents, because it's not typically studied, Mortimer said.</p><p>As a result, the scientists believe they've mapped Zealandia more thoroughly than any other continent on Earth. </p><p>"As far as we're aware, this is a world first," Mortimer, a geologist with <a href="https://data.gns.cri.nz/tez" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GNS Science</a> who led the study, told Insider.</p><h2>Decades of work establish Zealandia as a continent   </h2><p>Some have argued Zealandia isn't a continent because so much of it lies below the water. Others <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/zealandia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">consider it</a> a continental fragment or microcontinent. </p><p>For geologists, like Mortimer, the definition of a continent doesn't necessarily have to do with sea level. </p><p>In addition to a continent's large size and defined boundaries between land and sea, another important factor is the continental crust. </p><p>A continent typically has a thicker crust and is geologically much more varied — with granites, schists, limestones, and quartzites — compared to the sea floor.</p><div type="image" title="A colorful map of Zealandia in different shades of yellow, orange, and dark red" height="2718" width="3624" msid="104068286" hostid="261" sizebytes="649304"></div><p>It took a large international collaboration and a combination of satellite, radar, and rock data to understand Zealandia's geology. </p><p>By 2019, the team had mapped the boundaries of South Zealandia. Based on years of research and accumulating evidence, the team felt they could finally "pronounce Zealandia as a continent, albeit one that is a lot more hidden than other ones" Mortimer said. </p><p>But the researchers also wanted to know how Zealandia looks, from its volcanoes and ridges to its basement geology — the oldest crust that serves as its foundation. </p><h2>Geologically mapping Zealandia </h2><p>Their latest paper,<a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023TC007961" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> published</a> in the peer-reviewed journal "Tectonics" on September 12, fills in the maps' geological gaps in the northeast section, the last piece of the puzzle. </p><p>The researchers gathered and dated basalt and sandstone rocks from the seabed of the Fairway Ridge area of Zealandia, located in the Coral Sea to the northwest of New Caledonia. They ranged between about 36 and 128 million years old.</p><p>By gathering rock samples then plotting where they lay on Zealandia, the team could get a sense of what geological forces, like volcano formation and sinking crusts, were happening and when. </p><div type="image" title="Several gray granite rocks lined up on a white background with a sample number and 5 centimeter scale" height="1685" width="2250" msid="104068287" hostid="261" sizebytes="161692"></div><p>From left to right, the paper's bathymetric map shows Zealandia's basement geology getting progressively younger, from the Paleozoic to the Permian-Mesozoic eras. </p><p>The data helps geologists understand what happened when Zealandia broke off from a bigger landmass. </p><h2>Zealandia is likely Antarctica's cousin </h2><p>Mortimer calls Zealandia an extra piece of the supercontinent Gondwana puzzle. </p><p>For a long time, geologists have known Gondwana was a landmass containing what's now Antarctica, Australia, South America, Africa, and India. It began to break up during the Late Jurassic period, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818114001507" target="_blank" rel="noopener">about 160 million</a> years ago. </p><p>Zealandia's basement geology gave clues about where it fit into the supercontinent alongside Australia and Antarctica. </p><p>That included finding where granite once met granite and records of reversals in the Earth's magnetic field. "We can get some very satisfying geological matches across these continents before the supercontinent broke up," said Mortimer. </p><p>Under its ice, much of West Antarctica is submerged underwater, Mortimer said. Around 100 million years ago, the two nested together in Gondwana. "Both of those parts were stretched, a lot like pizza dough, pulled out and stretched," Mortimer said. "They got wider, but they got thinner."</p><p>As the crust cooled and thinned, Zealandia started to subside below the water and continued sinking until about 25 million years ago. Meanwhile, crustal uplift created mountains and islands, though New Zealand <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/news/the-geological-evolution-of-our-continent-over-100-million-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">may never</a> have been fully submerged. </p><div type="image" title="A drawing of several e atatu penguins on rocks and in water with green hills in the background" height="797" width="1063" msid="104068289" hostid="261" sizebytes="113594"></div><p>"Adding Zealandia into the data mix is bound to give us some insights into why supercontinents break up," Mortimer said. It also provides biologists with important information about the plants and animals — like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/extinct-penguin-species-suggests-origin-on-lost-zealandia-continent-2020-9">ancient penguins</a> — that lived on Zealandia. </p><p>The answers to that question and many others remain unsolved, Mortimer said. But now that geologists have a basic idea of the outline of Zealandia and its geology, they can shape their research projects and questions in a much more informed way to answer the whens, the hows, and the whys.</p>

Scientists finally finished mapping Earth's 8th continent Zealandia, helping them solve the lost continent's mysterious history

<ul class="summary-list"><li>An eighth continent, called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zealandia-continent-new-zealand-australia-2017-2">Zealandia</a>, is hidden under New Zealand and the surrounding Pacific.</li><li>Since 94% of <keyword id="4182442" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="zealandia">Zealandia</keyword> is submerged, discerning the continent's age and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/maps-reveal-eighth-continent-zealandia-underwater-2020-6">mapping it</a> is difficult.</li><li>New research suggests Zealandia is 1 billion years old, about twice as old as geologists thought.</li></ul><p>About 3,500 feet under the south Pacific sits a piece of land 2 million square miles in size - about half as big as Australia.</p><p>But scientists can't agree on whether this submerged land mass, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zealandia-continent-new-zealand-australia-2017-2">called Zealandia</a>, is a continent or not. A team of geologists <a href="https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/3/article/GSATG321A.1.htm">declared it one</a> in 2017, but not all researchers are convinced. </p><p>"It's not like a mountain, country, or planet. There is no formal body to approve a continent," Nick Mortimer, a geologist from New Zealand's GNS <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> who led 2017 group, told Insider.</p><p>While the definition of a continent is contentious, Mortimer's group suggested that a continent should have clearly defined boundaries, occupy an area greater than 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers), be elevated above the surrounding ocean crust, and have a continental crust thicker than that oceanic crust.</p><p>Zealandia meets all those stipulations.</p><p>"If you were to drain the oceans, Zealandia would stand out as a well-defined, high-standing plateau above the ocean floor," Mortimer said.</p><p>He considers it "the thinnest, most submerged and smallest continent."</p><p>The problem, however, was that until recently, the oldest crust and rock ever sampled from Zealandia was just 500 million years old, whereas all the other <keyword id="399683" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Continents">continents</keyword> contain crust that is 1 billion years old or more. <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/49/8/1009/598229/A-hidden-Rodinian-lithospheric-keel-beneath">But a recent study</a> found that part of the submerged continent is twice as old as geologists previously thought, which could boost Mortimer's argument.</p><p>"This new study ticks that final continental box," Rose Turnbull, a New Zealand geologist who co-authored the study, said <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Media-Releases-and-News/Continent-of-Zealandia-older-than-previously-thought-study-finds-18-05-2021">in a press release</a>. "There is no longer any doubt that we live on top of a continent."</p><h2>How to date a continent</h2><div type="image" title="A view of Fiordland National Park" height="2680" width="4020" msid="85327814" hostid="261"></div><p>Zealandia, a term geophysicist Bruce Luyendyk coined in 1995, is made up of New Zealand and a collection of submerged chunks of crust that broke off an ancient supercontinent called Gondwana <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=300018&amp;org=NSF&amp;from=newsrom=news">about 85 million years ago</a>.</p><p>About 94% of it is underwater - Zealandia sunk under the waves about 30 million to 50 million years after it broke off Gondwana. So it's a challenging land mass to study. </p><p>The geologists behind the recent research looked at 169 chunks of Zealandia granite, which were found under New Zealand's South and Stewart Islands. Granite forms when magma crystallizes deep within the Earth's crust.</p><p>By extracting microscopic crystals from the granite, the team was able to determine both the age of the crystals themselves and of the crust in which they formed. The results showed that crust was once part of another supercontinent known as Rodinia, which formed between 1.3 billion and 900 million years ago.</p><p>In other words, Zealandia's geologic history starts far earlier than 500 million years ago.</p><h2>Mapping Zealandia in unprecedented detail</h2><div type="image" title="Bathymetric" height="865" width="716" msid="85327820" hostid="261"></div><p>Part of <a href="https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/funds-and-opportunities/marsden/celebrating-marsden-research/photo-gallery/zircons-in-zealandia/">Turnbull's mission</a> is to create a 4D map of Zealandia's western coast - to visualize what that boundary looks like in three dimensions and how it has changed over time. </p><p>Last year, Mortimer helped map the shape and depth of the ocean floor surrounding Zealandia - what's known as a bathymetric map.</p><p>The map, part of a global initiative to survey the planet's entire ocean floor by 2030, also revealed Zealandia's size and coastlines in unprecedented detail. In addition, Mortimer's team created a tectonic map showing the locations of the continental and oceanic crusts that make up the submerged land mass.</p><p>These new, detailed maps, paired with the discovery that parts of Zealandia are older than geologists realized, offer further evidence that it should be considered the eighth continent, according to Mortimer.</p><p>"We hope that Zealandia will eventually make its way onto general world maps, be taught in schools, and become as familiar a name as Antarctica," he said.</p>

A fragment of a mysterious 8th continent is hiding under New Zealand - and it's twice as old as scientists thought

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Researchers in <keyword id="22501" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="New-Zealand">New Zealand</keyword> identified a new, extinct <keyword id="6354605" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Penguin">penguin</keyword> species via fossils.</li><li>The discovery indicates that crested penguins have lived in New Zealand for millions of years.</li><li>Based on this and other findings, researchers believe all modern-day penguins evolved from ancient penguins that roamed the now-sunken continent of <keyword id="4182442" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="zealandia">Zealandia</keyword>.</li></ul><p>Earth's lost eighth continent, Zealandia, sank into the sea between <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=300018&amp;org=NSF&amp;from=newsrom=news">50 and 35 million years ago</a>. Today, we know the tiny fraction of it that remains above the waves as New Zealand.</p><p>But before most of Zealandia disappeared — about 60 million years ago — ancient penguins walked upon the 2-million-square-mile continent. In fact, a recent discovery has led scientists to conclude that all modern-day penguins likely descended from Zealandia's ancient birds.</p><p>The newly identified fossils of an extinct penguin species offer a crucial, previously missing link between ancient and modern penguins.  </p><p>Last month, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2020.1497">researchers announced</a> that they'd found a set of well-preserved 3-million-year-old fossils, including a skull and a wing bone, on New Zealand's North Island. They identified the bones as belonging to a previously unknown species of crested penguin, which they named Eudyptes atatu.</p><p>The finding serves as "an important clue that New Zealand might have been a biodiversity hotspot for seabirds for millions of years," Daniel Thomas, a zoologist at Massey University and the lead author of the study, told Business Insider.</p><p>That's far longer than researchers previously realized; earlier studies had only dated the presence of crested penguins on New Zealand back about 7,000 years, Thomas said. The new timeline suggests the region is the penguin's most likely place of origin.</p><p> "We propose that New Zealand is likely to be where the earliest ancestor to all crested penguins lived, and where the ancestor of all penguins lived," Thomas said.</p><h2>New Zealand is the 'seabird capital of the world'</h2><div type="image" title="e atatu penguin bones" height="960" width="1280" msid="78265897" hostid="261"></div><p>The word atatu comes from the Maori term ata tū, which means dawn; Eudyptes refers to crested penguins — those with feathery yellow stripes above their eyes. There are between four and seven species of them alive on Earth today, depending on <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/3822-Eudyptes">which taxonomist you ask</a>.</p><p>New Zealand is home to <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=new+zealand+13+penguin+species&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS911US911&amp;oq=new+zealand+13+penguin+species&amp;aqs=chrome..69i57.3402j0j4&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8">13 species of penguin</a> for at least part of the year – the most of any country on Earth. More broadly, the island nation is considered the "seabird capital of the world," according to its <a href="https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/sea-and-shore-birds/">Department of Conservation</a>. More than a third of its 80 native seabird species <a href="https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/sea-and-shore-birds/#:~:text=More%20than%20a%20third%20of,endemic%2C%20or%20found%20nowhere%20else.">aren't found</a> anywhere else in the world. </p><p>The fossils from the extinct Eudyptes atatu penguin were found embedded in rock near the coastal region of Taranaki. Local collectors discovered them first, then alerted researchers at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. </p><p>After their analysis found the fossils to be about 3 million years old, the researchers compared the fossils to bones of other, living crested penguin species. They found that the ancient penguin was fairly similar to modern-day crested penguins, though its beak was more slender. That's a clue it had a different diet than its modern cousins, most of whom survive mainly on small fish, krill, and crustaceans.</p><div type="image" title="group of northern rockhopper penguins" height="1258" width="1900" msid="78265900" hostid="261"></div><p>So E. atatu could either be an ancestor of some species of modern crested penguin, or it could be a sister species that shares a common ancestor. </p><p>The researchers fed the information from their analysis into a software program that uses data about fossils and other information to map species' most likely origin points and migration patterns. That simulation is what led them to conclude that all modern penguins likely descended from the same Zealandia-dwelling ancestor.</p><h2><strong>Ancient penguins roamed the lost continent of Zealandia </strong></h2><p>E. atatu lived in New Zealand tens of millions of years after the rest of Zealandia sank. But the researchers think its ancestor evolved about 60 million years ago, suggesting that penguins likely once wandered the continent while the rest of its surface lay above sea level.</p><div type="image" title="Zealandia_topography" height="1617" width="1391" msid="78265902" hostid="261"></div><p>These ancient penguins may have been gigantic. In 2017, researchers <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08565-y">found</a> that prehistoric "mega-penguins" stood 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 220 pounds.</p><p>The majority of Zealandia, which is about half the size of Australia, now sits <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/maps-reveal-eighth-continent-zealandia-underwater-2020-6">3,500 feet under the sea</a>. In addition to mega-penguins, the continent was once likely home to dinosaurs and lush rainforest. </p>

Fossils found in New Zealand suggest the ancestor of all penguins lived on Earth's lost 8th continent, Zealandia

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists confirmed the existence of an eighth continent, called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zealandia-continent-new-zealand-australia-2017-2">Zealandia</a>, under New Zealand and the surrounding ocean in 2017.</li><li>Because 94% of <keyword id="4182442" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="zealandia">Zealandia</keyword>'s 2 million square miles are underwater, mapping the continent is challenging.</li><li>Researchers just released <keyword id="440912" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Maps">maps</keyword> that show Zealandia in unprecedented detail, revealing its shape and how it was formed millions of years ago.</li></ul><p>About 3,500 feet under the south Pacific waves sits a lost eighth continent.</p><p>Scientists confirmed that the submerged land mass, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zealandia-continent-new-zealand-australia-2017-2">named Zealandia</a>, was its own continent in 2017. But they hadn't been able to map its full breadth until now.</p><p>On Monday, researchers from <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Media-Releases/New-maps-and-website-give-fresh-insights-into-NZ-continent-22-06-2020">GNS Science in New Zealand announced</a> that they'd mapped the shape and size of the continent in unprecedented detail. They put their maps on <a href="http://data.gns.cri.nz/tez">an interactive website</a> so that users could virtually explore the continent.</p><p>"We've made these maps to provide an accurate, complete, and up-to-date picture of the <keyword id="6438753" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="geology">geology</keyword> of the New Zealand and southwest Pacific area — better than we have had before," Nick Mortimer, who led the work, <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Media-Releases/New-maps-and-website-give-fresh-insights-into-NZ-continent-22-06-2020">said in a statement</a>.</p><p>Mortimer and his colleagues mapped the bathymetry surrounding Zealandia — the shape and depth of the ocean floor — as well as its tectonic profile, showing where Zealandia falls across tectonic-plate boundaries.</p><p>The maps reveal new information about how Zealandia formed before it became submerged underwater millions of years ago. </p><h2>An underwater continent nearly 2 million square miles in size </h2><p>Zealandia's area is nearly 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers) — about half the size of Australia.</p><p>But only 6% of the continent is above sea level. That part underpins New Zealand's north and south islands and the island of New Caledonia. The rest is underwater, which makes Zealandia challenging to survey.</p><p>To better understand the submerged continent, Mortimer and his team mapped both Zealandia and the ocean floor around it. The bathymetric map they created (below) shows how high the continent's mountains and ridge rise toward the water's surface.</p><p><div type="image" title="Bathymetric" height="865" width="716" msid="76586893" hostid="261"></div></p><p>It also depicts coastlines, territorial limits, and the names of major undersea features. The map is part of a global initiative to map the planet's entire ocean floor by 2030.</p><p>The second map the GNS scientists made (below) reveals the types of crust that make up the underwater continent, how old that crust is, and major faults. The continental crust — the older, thicker kind of Earth's crust that forms landmasses — is shown in red, orange, yellow, and brown. The oceanic crust, which is generally younger, is in blue. Red triangles show where volcanoes are.</p><p><div type="image" title="Tectonic map New Zealandia" height="867" width="718" msid="76586904" hostid="261"></div></p><p>This map also reveals where Zealandia sits across various <keyword id="1801228" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="tectonic-plates">tectonic plates</keyword>, which of those plates are being pushed under the other in a process known as subduction, and how quickly that movement is happening.</p><p>Studying the tectonic machinations that underpin Zealandia today can reveal clues about how the continent formed in the first place.</p><h2>Zealandia's 85 million-year-old origins</h2><p>The concept of Zealandia is 25 years old. Geophysicist Bruce Luyendyk coined the term in 1995.</p><p>Luyendyk <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zealandia-continent-new-zealand-australia-2017-2">previously told Business Insider</a> that he never intended for the term to describe a new continent. Rather, the name originally referred to New Zealand and a collection of submerged chunks of crust that broke off the ancient supercontinent Gondwana <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=300018&amp;org=NSF&amp;from=newsrom=news">about 85 million years ago</a>.</p><p>"The reason I came up with this term is out of convenience," Luyendyk said. "They're pieces of the same thing when you look at Gondwana. So I thought, 'Why do you keep naming this collection of pieces as different things?'"</p><p>Gondwana formed when Earth's ancient supercontinent, <keyword id="1689659" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Pangea">Pangea</keyword>, split into two fragments. Laurasia in the north became Europe, Asia, and North America. Gondwana in the south dispersed to form modern-day Africa, Antarctica, South America, and Australia.</p><p><div type="image" title="Pangea map" height="512" width="1024" msid="76586912" hostid="261"></div></p><p>Geologic forces continued to rearrange these land masses, and Zealandia was forced under the waves about 30 million to 50 million years after it broke off Gondwana as the largest tectonic plate — the Pacific Plate — slowly subducted beneath it.</p><h2>These maps show Zealandia is a continent like the other 7</h2><p>Until 2017, Zealandia was classified as a "microcontinent," like the island of Madagascar. But according to Mortimer, Zealandia ticks all the boxes for continent status: It has clearly defined boundaries, occupies an area greater than 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers), is elevated above the surrounding ocean crust, and has a continental crust thicker than that oceanic crust.</p><p>These new maps therefore offer further evidence that the underwater land mass should be considered the eighth continent, Mortimer added.</p><p>"If we could pull the plug on the world's oceans, it would be quite clear that Zealandia stands out," he <a href="https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/zealandia-continent">told Science News in 2017</a>, adding, "If it wasn't for the ocean level, long ago we'd have recognized Zealandia for what it was — a continent."</p>

New maps reveal details about the size and shape of Earth's lost 8th continent, Zealandia, which disappeared under the Pacific Ocean

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>Zealandia is a new and mostly submerged continent off the coast of New Zealand.</strong></li><li><strong>The discovery started with offshore oil drilling in the 1960s.</strong></li><li><strong>A UN treaty that gave drilling rights to continental crust drove further research.</strong></li><li><strong>Scientists used the industry data to help determine Zealandia exists.</strong></li></ul><p>By now you've probably seen the big geology news: Earth has a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/zealandia-continent-new-zealand-australia-2017-2">brand-new continent called Zealandia</a>, and it's been hiding from us for ages.</p><p>What's less widely known about the discovery, however, is how it came about - and what it means for we humans who live on top of the rocks.</p><p>Zealandia, which spans roughly 4.9 million square kilometers (1.9 million square miles) and is about 95% underwater, was a revelation more than a half-century in the making. And like many geologic discoveries, it began with the human drive to exploit natural resources.</p><p>"Calling Zealandia a continent is more of a formality and mostly a scientific interest," said study co-author Vaughan Stagpoole, a geophysicist and head of the marine geoscience department at <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/">GNS Science</a>, a New Zealand-funded research institute.</p><p>"In terms of the economic benefits" like minerals, oil, and gas, he said, "that was established a while ago."</p><p>And yet New Zealand and New Caledonia, a French territory, are only just beginning to establish what's down there other than a lot of continental crust; Stagpoole says it's a vast, mostly unexplored, and "extreme frontier" - one that could hide untold riches.</p><p>Here's how scientists found Zealandia and why it's so important.</p><h2>New Zealand's offshore oil boom</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>The <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/content/download/7657/41820/file/2012-01_SR_Tasman_Frontier.pdf">1960s</a> marked the beginning of New Zealand's offshore drilling efforts and the discovery of the continent Zealandia.</p><p>Since that time, the country's <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nz.html">crude oil production</a> per capita has since grown to 30% that of US output, and it's a significant economic boon for the island nation. In fact, the government now leases about 200 wells and pulls in <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/static/unclos/pdfs/cooperation.pdf">about $100 million</a> worth of royalties a year.</p><p>"Oil remains a significant export earner in New Zealand and natural gas is a vital input to industry, electricity generation and is used in more than 300,000 homes," Simon Bridges, New Zealand's energy and resources minister, said in <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/2016-block-offer-petroleum-tender-announced">a 2016 press release</a>. (Though we'll note that many locals are <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/campaigns/climate-change/Oil-drilling-not-a-solution/">not</a> <a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1007/S00304.htm">happy </a>with the <a href="http://www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/documents/industry/fact-sheets/deep-sea-drilling.pdf">environmental risks</a> posed by offshore drilling.)</p><p>Oil prospectors and geologists alike in the <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/content/download/7657/41820/file/2012-01_SR_Tasman_Frontier.pdf">1960s and 1970s</a> wondered if there might be more continental crust - and the oil it conceals - lurking deep below the ocean around New Zealand and New Caledonia.</p><p>So in the early '70s, they began drilling samples from the ocean bottom and pulling them up.</p><p>Lo and behold, the rocks seemed continental in nature, and remarkably similar from one region to the next. Evidence for more and larger tracts of continental crust hidden on the ocean bottom mounted with each new expedition.</p><p>Looking at the data in 1995, <a href="http://www.geol.ucsb.edu/faculty/luyendyk/">Bruce Luyendyk</a>, a geophysicist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, coined the term "Zealandia."</p><p>Luyendyk never intended Zealandia to be a new continent's name.</p><p>Rather, he used it to describe New Zealand, New Caledonia, and the growing number of submerged chunks of crust that broke off a region of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-continents-crystals-plate-tectonics-2017-1">Gondwana</a>, a 200 million-year-old supercontinent.</p><p>"The reason I came up with this term is out of convenience," Luyendyk previously told Business Insider. "They're pieces of the same thing when you look at Gondwana. So I thought, 'Why do you keep naming this collection of pieces as different things?'"</p><h2>The final stretch for a new continent</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>At around the same time Luyendyk wrote down "Zealandia," New Zealand joined a United Nations treaty called the <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/UNCLOS-TOC.htm">Convention on the Law of the Sea</a> (UNCLOS), which helped spur the continent's discovery.</p><p>Importantly, UNCLOS defines five maritime zones - one of which hinges on a "continental" definition (more on this in a moment).</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The "territorial sea" zone extends about 12 miles offshore. Countries get tight control over most things that happen there, including drilling, fishing, boating, flights, and immigration.<p>Between 12 and 200 miles, there's the "economic zone" where Stagpoole says "vessels can pass through without any permission" yet the country retains many drilling and fishing rights.</p><p>Beyond 200 miles, it's a sort of a Wild West.</p><p>However, a piece of that treaty called "<a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/static/unclos/">article 76</a>" says that a nation can lay claim to a continental shelf's drilling and mining rights - if they can prove it's connected to their nation.</p><p>So New Zealand and other nations set out to explore just that in the late 1990s through the early 2000s, came back with a pile of evidence, and the UN agreed with its final border claims in 2004.</p><p>It was a huge seafloor land grab for New Zealand, in that the nation significantly expanded its resource extraction rights (area between the yellow and red borders, below).</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>The effort amounted to a lot of drilling samples, satellite imagery, seismic scans, and other information about the seafloor of Zealandia.</p><p>Stagpoole says this data eventually led to further scientific studies, including <a href="https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Our-Science/Earth-Science/Ocean-Floor-Exploration/Oceans-Research/Tasman-Frontier">a 2012 report</a> on the Tasman Frontier: "a vast submerged continental fragment of over 3,000,000 sq km [1.16 million square miles] between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia."</p><p>That work begged the question: Are these all just Gondwana's continental fragments, or all part of an unrecognized continent?</p><h2>Zealandia: The unexplored continent</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Stagpoole and his colleagues <a href="https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/3/article/GSATG321A.1.htm">settled the question</a> of Zealandia's continent status in the March/April 2017 issue of GSA Today, a Geological Society of America journal.</p><p>"I think they've put together a solid collection of evidence that's really thorough," said Luyendyk, who wasn't involved in the new study. "I don't see that there's going to be a lot of pushback, except maybe around the edges."</p><p>Despite the fact that New Zealand has been selling off drilling permits to Zealandia with its "<a href="http://www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/permits/petroleum/block-offer">Block Offer</a>" program since 2012, Stagpoole says no one is exactly sure what Zealandia has to offer, or where.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>"We're still trying to understand the tectonic history," Stagpoole said. "New Caledonia, Germany, Australia, and other nations are regularly exploring this region to understand the question about how continental crust is formed, and understand the geologic history of this particular continental crust."<p>He said it will take more on-the-water expeditions to figure out what treasures Zealandia hides - likely pockets of oil, precious metals, and other extractable resources.</p><p>"If you plotted all of the scientific ship trips so far, they can be hundreds of kilometers apart," he said. "There are huge gaps in our understanding of what's down there."</p><p>For now, Stagpoole said it's a technology and people-power issue: getting enough high-tech instruments deployed on enough ships.</p><p>"This is extreme frontier," he said. "As we get better at exploring the deep oceans, these things may become more economic."</p><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:49%"></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/australia-moving-6-feet-north-tectonic-plates-gps-2016-8">All of Australia is about to move 6 feet north </a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="43bHg0NTE6XbtThk31hMiPF1_I8o6w7u" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Earth's newest continent 'Zealandia' was found thanks to a giant underwater land grab

<ul><li><strong>Geologists used to think Earth had six continents, but a new study adds a seventh: "Zealandia."</strong></li><li><strong>Recent satellite data and rock samples are behind the conclusion.</strong></li><li><strong>New Zealand and New Caledonia are part of the new continent, which is about as big as greater India.</strong></li><li><strong>The new continent could have economic and geopolitical implications.</strong></li></ul><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/earths-fault-lines-between-tectonic-plates-222423562">Shutterstock</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Kids are frequently taught that seven continents exist: Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.</p><p>Geologists, who look at the rocks (and tend to ignore the humans), group Europe and Asia into its own supercontinent - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/eurasia-india-plate-tectonics-half-continent-gone-2016-10/">Eurasia</a> - making for a total of six geologic continents.</p><p>But according to a new study of Earth's crust, there's a seventh geologic continent called "Zealandia," and it has been hiding under our figurative noses for millennia.</p><p>The 11 researchers behind the study argue that New Zealand and New Caledonia aren't merely an island chain. Instead, they're both part of a single, 4.9-million-square kilometer (1.89 million-square-mile) slab of continental crust that's distinct from Australia.</p><p>"This is not a sudden discovery but a gradual realization; as recently as 10 years ago we would not have had the accumulated data or confidence in interpretation to write this paper," they <a href="https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/3/article/GSATG321A.1.htm">wrote in GSA Today</a>, a Geological Society of America journal.</p><p>Ten of the researchers work for organizations or companies within the new continent; one works for a university in Australia. But other geologists are almost certain to accept the research team's continent-size conclusions, says <a href="http://www.geol.ucsb.edu/faculty/luyendyk/">Bruce Luyendyk</a>, a geophysicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (he wasn't involved in the study).</p><p>"These people here are A-list earth scientists," Luyendyk tells Business Insider. "I think they've put together a solid collection of evidence that's really thorough. I don't see that there's going to be a lot of pushback, except maybe around the edges."</p><h2>Why Zealandia is almost certainly a new continent</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>N. Mortimer et al./GSA Today</span></p><p class="caption">Zealandia, shown in gray to the east of Australia, may be Earth's seventh geologic continent.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The concept of Zealandia isn't new. In fact, Luyendyk coined the word in 1995.</p><p>But Luyendyk says it was never intended to describe a new continent. Rather, the name was used to describe New Zealand, New Caledonia, and a collection of submerged pieces and slices of crust that broke off a region of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-continents-crystals-plate-tectonics-2017-1">Gondwana</a>, a 200 million-year-old supercontinent.</p><p>"The reason I came up with this term is out of convenience," Luyendyk says. "They're pieces of the same thing when you look at Gondwana. So I thought, 'why do you keep naming this collection of pieces as different things?'"</p><p>Researchers behind the new study took Luyendyk's idea a huge step further, re-examining known evidence under four criteria that geologists use to deem a slab of rock a continent:</p><ol><li>Land that pokes up relatively high from the ocean floor</li><li>A diversity of three types of rocks: igneous (spewed by volcanoes), metamorphic (altered by heat/pressure), and sedimentary (made by erosion)</li><li>A thicker, less-dense section of crust compared to surrounding ocean floor</li><li>"Well-defined limits around a large enough area to be considered a continent rather than a microcontinent or continental fragment"</li></ol><p>Over the past few decades, geologists had already determined that New Zealand and New Caledonia fit the bill for items 1, 2, and 3. After all, they're large islands that poke up from the sea floor, are geologically diverse, and are made of thicker, less-dense crust.</p><p>This eventually led to Luyendyk's coining of Zealandia, and the description of the region as "continental," since it was considered a collection of microcontinents, or bits and pieces of former continents.</p><p>The authors say the last item on the list - a question of "is it big enough and unified enough to be its own thing?" - is one that other researchers skipped over in the past, though by no fault of their own. At a glance, Zealandia seemed broken-up. But the new study used recent and detailed satellite-based elevation and gravity maps of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pangea-tethys-ocean-floor-mediterranean-2016-8">ancient seafloor</a> to show that Zealandia is indeed part of one unified region.</p><p>The data also suggests Zealandia spans "approximately the area of greater India," or larger than Madagascar, New Guinea, Greenland, or other microcontinents and provinces.</p><p>"If the elevation of Earth's solid surface had first been mapped in the same way as those of Mars and Venus (which lack [...] opaque liquid oceans)," they wrote, "we contend that Zealandia would, much earlier, have been investigated and identified as one of Earth's continents."</p><h2>The geologic devils in the details</h2><p>The study's authors point out that while India is big enough to be a continent, and probably used to be, it's now part of Eurasia because it collided and stuck to that continent millions of years ago.</p><p>Zealandia, meanwhile, has not yet smashed into Australia; a piece of seafloor called the Cato Trough still separates the two continents by 25 kilometers (15.5 miles).</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/3/article/GSATG321A.1.htm">N. Mortimer et al./GSA Today</a></span></p><p class="caption">An elevation map of Zealandia and nearby Australia.</p></div><p></p></div></div>One thing that makes the case for Zealandia tricky is its division into northern and southern segments by two <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-moves-tectonic-plates-2017-1">tectonic plates</a>: the Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate.</p><p>This split makes the region seem more like a bunch of continental fragments than a unified slab.</p><p>But the researchers point out that Arabia, India, and parts of Central America have similar divisions, yet are still considered parts of larger continents.</p><p>"I'm from California, and it has a plate boundary going through it," Luyendyk says. "In millions of years, the western part will be up near Alaska. Does that make it not part of North America? No."</p><p>What's more, the researchers wrote, rock samples suggest Zealandia is made of the same continental crust that used to be part of Gondwana, and that it migrated in ways similar to the continents Antarctica and Australia.</p><p>The samples and satellite data also show Zealandia is not broken up as a collection of microcontinents, but a unified slab.</p><p>Instead, plate tectonics has thinned, stretched, and submerged Zealandia over of millions of years. Today, only about 5% of it is visible as the islands of New Zealand and New Caledonia - which is part of the reason it took so long to discover.</p><p>"The scientific value of classifying Zealandia as a continent is much more than just an extra name on a list," the scientists wrote. "That a continent can be so submerged yet unfragmented makes it a useful and thought-provoking geodynamic end member in exploring the cohesion and breakup of continental crust."</p><p>Luyendyk believes the distinction won't likely end up as a scientific curiosity, however, and speculated that it may eventually have larger consequences.</p><p>"The economic implications are clear and come into play: What's part of New Zealand and what's not part of New Zealand?" he says.</p><p>Indeed, <a href="http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/convention_overview_convention.htm">United Nations agreements</a> make specific mentions of continental shelves as boundaries that determine where resources can be extracted - and New Zealand may have <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&amp;objectid=10829768">tens of billions of dollars' worth</a> of fossil fuels and minerals lurking off its shores.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-proxima-centauri-b-exoplanet-inhabitable-dead-zone-2017-2">NASA just dashed our dreams of ever moving to this Earth-sized exoplanet</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="JxdTNxOTE62rZwcpkAX78Xqlxkojvxz5" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Earth has a brand-new continent called 'Zealandia,' and it's been hiding in plain sight for ages

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Global temperature changes have been an important driver of penguin <keyword id="12109010" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="evolution" source="Orion">evolution</keyword>, a new study suggests.</li><li>Researchers mapped penguin evolution and identified traits that helped them survive.</li></ul><p>About 60 million years ago, <keyword id="12133598" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="penguins" source="Orion">penguins</keyword> evolved from their flying ancestors into the water-loving swimmers and divers we know today. A new genetic analysis reveals just how they evolved this underwater prowess, offering the most comprehensive overview of the tuxedo-clad bird's evolutionary history to date.</p><p>In a new study, published this week in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31508-9">Nature Communications</a>, a team of international researchers analyzed 27 genomes — or the complete set of genetic information — of all living and recently extinct penguin species. Using that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/telomere-consortium-scientists-map-full-human-genome-for-first-time-2022-4">genetic data</a> and the existing penguin fossil record, researchers compared the penguin genomes to the genomes of other birds, like pelicans and albatrosses.</p><p>They found that penguins evolved in response to ancient <keyword id="12002886" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate" source="Orion">climate</keyword> shifts, making their bodies uniquely specialized to some of the harshest conditions on Earth.</p><p>"This paper provides a step change in our understanding of which genes underpin these different adaptations," Richard Phillips, a seabird ecologist at British Antarctic Survey and a co-author on the study, said in a <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/study-reveals-60-million-years-of-penguin-evolution/">press release</a>. </p><h1>Temperature changes drove penguin evolution</h1><p>Ancient penguins <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/extinct-penguin-species-suggests-origin-on-lost-zealandia-continent-2020-9">originated in Zealandia</a>, a submerged land mass off the coast of Australia, about 60 million years ago. Scientists think from there, they migrated to South America and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/Antarctica-ice-shelf-previously-thought-stable-collapses-2022-3">Antarctica</a>. Around 30 to 40 million years ago, later groups likely hitched rides on a strong ocean current flowing around the globe, called the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. </p><p>Penguins lost their ability to fly before the formation of the polar ice sheets, as getting off the ground took too much effort for birds that were becoming expert swimmers.</p><p>"Although when most people think of penguins, they picture them among ice floes and being chased by leopard seals, penguins evolved to be aquatic creatures," Phillips said.</p><div type="image" title="Many penguins in the snow in the Falkland Islands on June 20, 2022." height="2274" width="3024" msid="93073466" hostid="261" sizebytes="285386"></div><p>Researchers found that global temperature changes have been an important driver of penguin evolution and contributed to the diversification of new species. For example, the expansion of Antarctica's glaciers during the middle-to-late Miocene period, a period roughly 5.3 to 16 million years ago, marked by significant global cooling, coincides with the emergence of modern crown penguins, roughly 14 million years ago. </p><p>A suite of genetic adaptations, including body size, underwater vision, heat regulation, and diving ability, allowed these birds to thrive on both land and in water, according to researchers.</p><p>For example, some genes made forearm bones shorter, while others reduced penguins' feathers, leading them to develop flippers. Other genes helped penguins store white fat, which works as an insulator and energy source, helping the birds stay warm in bitterly cold environments. </p><h1>Penguins in a warming world</h1><div type="image" title="Keepers at the London Zoo keep the Humboldt penguins cool with frozen fish lollies treats during the heatwave on July 18, 2022." height="2552" width="3650" msid="93073468" hostid="261" sizebytes="311894"></div><p>The way ancient penguins experienced immense climate fluctuations in the past could offer insight into how they are coping with a warming world. Research suggests modern penguins are not coping well. Due in part to to rising temperatures from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">climate change</a>, half of all living penguin species are classified as either endangered or vulnerable on the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/">IUCN Red List of Threatened Species</a>. </p><p>One of the new study's findings is that in warmer temperatures, penguins' rate of evolution slowed.  The flightless birds might not be able to handle modern climate change, researchers say, which is happening at a faster clip than the past temperature changes ancient penguins survived.</p><p>"Over 60 million years, these iconic birds have evolved to become highly specialized marine predators, and are now well adapted to some of the most extreme environments on Earth," <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31508-9">the study authors wrote in the new paper.</a> "Yet, as their evolutionary history reveals, they now stand as sentinels highlighting the vulnerability of cold-adapted fauna in a rapidly warming world."</p>

A new genetic analysis explains how penguins lost the ability to fly, headed south, and became excellent swimmers

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Hundreds of millions of years ago, Earth had one giant supercontinent named Pangea.</li><li>Pangea eventually broke up into smaller land masses, which then fragmented further and became our modern-day continents. </li><li>New research shows that an eighth continent slid underneath what is now southern Europe about 120 million years ago, and it's still hidden deep within the Earth.</li><li>Scientists named this lost continent "Greater Adria." Its uppermost regions form mountain ranges across Europe, like the Alps.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>The map of the world looked very different 240 million years ago.</p><p>Earth's modern-day continents were joined together in one Pac-man-shaped supercontinent known as Pangea, which eventually split into two fragments: Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south. The former became Europe, Asia, and North America. The latter dispersed to form modern-day Africa, Antarctica, South America, and Australia. </p><p>But now, scientists have discovered the fate of a fifth continent that was born from Gondwana's bosom, which they named Greater Adria. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X19302230#!">A study</a> published last week showed that geologic forces slowly shoved the Greenland-sized land mass underneath southern Europe between 120 and 100 million years ago.</p><p>The continent was already half-submerged to start, but as it rumbled toward the Earth's mantle (the rocky inner layer of our planet), its top layer got peeled away, jutting up to become fodder for mountains in what are now 30 European countries.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>Douwe van Hinsbergen, the lead author of the study, compared Greater Adria's subduction to the act of shoving a clothed arm below a table's edge. </p><p>"Suppose you have a sweater on," he told Business Insider. As you push your arm under the table, the sweater sleeve stays behind, getting folded and jutting upward. The folded sleeve is the "equivalent of the upper few kilometers of  Adria's crust, and your arm is the plate that is now sinking in the mantle, hundreds or even thousands of kilometers below our feet," van Hinsbergen said.</p><p>Those "sweater folds" became Eurasian mountain belts like the Apennines in Italy, the Dinarides in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Swiss Alps, the Zagros mountains of Iran, and the Himalayas.</p><h2>Reconstructing Greater Adria's geologic history</h2><p>In order to piece together Greater Adria's past, van Hinsbergen and his colleagues spent a decade aggregating geological data from countries across Europe, north Africa, and western Asia.</p><p>Naturally occurring magnets in the Earth's crust can help scientists track 240-million-year-old tectonic plate movements. When hot lava cools at the boundary between two shifting plates, it traps rocks containing magnetic minerals that align with the Earth's magnetic fields at the time. The rocks keep that alignment, so scientists can use their orientation to calculate where those magnets were located on the planet millions of years ago.</p><p>The researchers looked at magnetic rocks from 2,300 ancient sites across the Mediterranean region. Then they used that data to create computer simulations of the movements of Earth's tectonic plates before, during, and after Greater Adria's descent into the mantle.  </p><p>The researchers determined that the hidden continent broke off of what is now Africa 220 million years ago, then further splintered away from what became the Iberian peninsula 40 million years later. By about 140 million years ago, van Hinsbergen <a href="https://www.livescience.com/ancient-lost-continent-beneath-europe.html">told Live Science</a>, Greater Adria was likely a string of archipelagos.</p><p>At that time, Adria probably looked like modern-day Zealandia, the mini-continent that underpins New Zealand's north and south islands. Only 7% of Zealandia is above sea-level.</p><p><em><strong>Read More: </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zealandia-continent-new-zealand-australia-2017-2">Earth has a brand-new continent called Zealandia, and it's been hiding in plain sight for ages</a></em></p><p><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></em></p><p>Then, between 120 and 100 million years ago, the jostling of Earth's tectonic plates forced Greater Adria down into the mantle, under what is now southern Europe. </p><p>"The deepest portions are now at a 1,500-kilometer (932-mile) depth below Greece," van Hinsbergen said.</p><p>The study authors also discovered that some splinters of Greater Adria didn't subduct under Europe and instead remained above sea level. They eventually became parts of Italy, like Turin and Venice, as well as the Istria region of Croatia.</p><h2>Knowing what the Earth looked like millions of years ago might aid the search for valuable mineral deposits</h2><p>According to van Hinsbergen, reconstructions of our planet's geologic history can help countries and companies looking to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-earth-metals-elements-what-they-are-2019-6">mine valuable mineral deposits</a>, since scientists can highlight regional patterns in the way certain magnetic materials are deposited in the Earth's crust.</p><p>"Metals, ceramics, building materials, everything came out of a rock," he said. "You don't find the next gold or copper mine, or the 25 materials you've never even heard of that make your iPhone work, by taking a stroll in the woods."</p><p>Geologic reconstructions could also help researchers better understand how existing mineral and ore deposits - ones we already know about - formed, and where any remaining materials might be buried.</p>

A lost 8th continent is hidden nearly 1,000 miles under Europe, new research shows. Scientists named it 'Greater Adria.'

<p><em>Hello, everyone! Welcome to the new edition of <keyword id="9095853" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="insider-today">Insider Today</keyword>. Please </em><a href="https://www.insider.com/insider-today"><em>sign up here</em></a><em>.</em></p><h2><strong>QUOTE OF THE DAY</strong></h2><p>"<strong>The film represents enslaved Black people in accordance with longstanding stereotypes, as servants, notable for their devotion to their white masters or for their ineptitude. And the film's treatment of this world through a lens of nostalgia denies the horrors of slavery as well as its legacies of racial inequality.</strong>" — Film scholar Jacqueline Stewart's <a href="https://www.insider.com/gone-with-the-wind-returns-to-hbo-max-2020-6">new introduction to <em>Gone with the Wind</em></a>, which returned to HBO Max after having being pulled off the network earlier in June.</p><h2><strong>WHAT'S HAPPENING</strong></h2><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong><keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19">COVID-19</keyword> caseloads are spiking. </strong>The US recorded more than 36,000 new cases on Wednesday, the highest number of the <keyword id="43587" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="pandemic">pandemic</keyword>, with particularly bad outbreaks in Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/experts-worry-full-blown-outbreak-us-daily-cases-surge-2020-6">The Trump administration seems blase</a>. </p><p><strong>US weekly jobless claims: 1.5 million. </strong>That's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-weekly-jobless-claims-filings-unemployment-insurance-coronavirus-recession-economy-2020-6">much worse than economists had expected,</a> and marks the 14th consecutive week with more than 1 million claims. </p><p><strong>The Treasury Department sent $1.4 billion in stimulus checks to dead people. </strong>The GAO found that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stimulus-checks-dead-people-treasury-department-sent-trump-billion-amount-2020-6">1.1 million checks went to dead people</a>. The IRS says it will take back the money, but doesn't plan to do it anytime soon. </p><p><strong>Supreme Court upholds Trump Administration's limits on asylum seekers. </strong>The justices agree that<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-agrees-with-trump-administration-on-limits-on-asylum-seekers/2020/06/25/695b3b74-b6e8-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html"> asylum seekers rejected by an immigration official during an initial screening</a> don't have the right to appeal to a judge.</p><h2>VIEWS OF THE DAY</h2><h2><strong><div type="image" title="donald trump no mask coronavirus" height="1000" width="2000" msid="76632996" hostid="261"></div></strong></h2><p><strong>Masking would help Trump, so why has he rejected it? Four theories. </strong></p><p>The US has lost the fight against coronavirus. COVID-19 is ravaging the South and West. Yesterday was the worst day for new cases in the US since the outbreak started. We squandered the lockdown. We didn't test enough. Contact tracing is nonexistent. States and agencies record and report data in dishonest and slothful ways. All of this has pushed what Trump desperately wants — an actually reopened <keyword id="34412" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="economy">economy</keyword> — further and further away. </p><p>A visiting alien who knows nothing about this country would ask themself: Why has the president repudiated the things that could help Americans stay healthy, and thus help him politically? Let's take one pungent, small example. </p><p>It's been clear for months that wearing masks, especially in indoor spaces, especially in groups, is a small behavioral change with an outsized impact. It requires very little of citizens, and would have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/face-masks-effective-in-protecting-against-coronavirus-2020-6">a huge impact in reducing viral transmission</a>, caseloads, and deaths. In other countries, masking has quickly become practically universal and totally destigmatized — the way seatbelt wearing and handwashing are. </p><p>Had the president and his team gone all out for masks, it would have easily quashed the masks-are-oppression crowd. Plus the country would be healthier, the economy would be stronger, and his poll numbers would be higher. So why didn't he? </p><p>Here are four theories:</p><ol><li><em>Trump is vain.</em> He thinks he looks bad with a <keyword id="6438835" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mask">mask</keyword>, so he refuses to wear it. He similarly judges as ugly or weak any staffers who wear them, making masklessness the norm across the White House, which effectively turns demasking into policy</li><li><em style="color: #222222;">Owning the libs is more important than public health.</em> Democrats are pushing for masking, which triggers certain conservative activists, who agitate that this is an important culture war battle — even though it's not. That works up the base and conservative media, which infects Trump. Masking would mean the libs got a win, and that can't be allowed, even if it kills people. </li><li><em style="color: #222222;">Masking infringes on individual liberty.</em> Some on the right have become enthralled with a highly selfish conception of liberty that equates freedom with being able to do what you want. Historically conservatism has embraced a more expansive idea of liberty that emphasizes balancing your own desires with your obligations to protect and serve others. This selfish libertarianism spread on social media and into conservative media, and influenced the president.</li><li><em style="color: #222222;">Trump thinks magically.</em> He's ignorant of <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> and hasn't been interested in anything that's not a miracle. Trump has consistently hyped bogus cure-alls — the virus will simply vanish, there will be a vaccine in months, hydroxychloroquine will prevent infection. Masking by contrast offers a subtle, marginal benefit. </li></ol><p>Sadly, all four of these theories hold Trump in their thrall. He can't shake loose from them, even though it would actually help him get closer to what he wants, which is reelection.<em> — DP</em></p><p><strong>The White House just proved John Bolton's point about Trump's China policy, and Republicans helped.</strong></p><p><strong><div type="image" title="Trump xi" height="512" width="1024" msid="76633001" hostid="261"></div></strong></p><p>In former National Security Adviser John Bolton's new book he explains that Trump's China policy <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/john-bolton-book-proves-trump-not-tough-china-xi-jinping-2020-6">isn't driven by any kind of principle, it's transactional</a>. Trump's base wants him to be tough on China, so he thinks he has to deliver for them to win reelection. </p><p>That's why, Bolton writes, Trump veritably begged Chinese President Xi Jiinping to buy more US agricultural goods in order to please his base of farmers. It's why Trump doesn't care about Muslim concentration camps in Xinjiang or China's anti-democratic encroachment into Hong Kong.</p><p>Of course, the White House denied all this and called Bolton a liar.</p><p>That denial is belied by Trump's own actions. This week the White House asked Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Republican from North Dakota, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/kevin-cramer-blocks-china-sanctions-bill-338246">to block unanimous passage of a bill</a> that would sanction China for its actions in Hong Kong. And Cramer did, despite being a co-sponsor of the bill.</p><p>Don't expect China hawks like GOP Senators Marco Rubio or Tom Cotton to speak up. They've been either mum or mealy mouthed about the allegations in Bolton's book. To stand up to the President's lack of principles, they would have to have some of their own. <em>- LL</em></p><p><div type="image" title="FILE PHOTO: A child walks by newly painted George Floyd graffiti at the Cal Anderson Park Reflecting Pool as protesters against racial inequality occupy space at the CHOP area near the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct in Seattle, Washington, U.S. June 18, 2020. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo" height="2418" width="3224" msid="76633006" hostid="261"></div></p><p><strong>Seattle businesses and residents sue city over CHOP </strong></p><p>As I wrote in this newsletter <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-visa-immigration-ban-bad-us-economy-image-2020-6">two days ago</a>, the party's just about over for Seattle's Capitol Hill Organized Protest Area (CHOP) — the six-square block zone in which authorities have allowed protesters to operate autonomously for nearly the past three weeks. After three shootings last weekend, Mayor Jenny Durkan said the city would start encouraging people "to go home," but would not be breaking up the zone with immediate and severe force. </p><p>But the massive action against racism and police brutality has not come without costs to businesses and residents in the CHOP zone — some of whom have banded together in a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6956581-CHOPComplaint.html">class action lawsuit</a> against the city for the "extensive harm" they claim to have suffered as a result of the city's tolerance for a police-free zone.</p><p>The litigants state right off the bat that they do "not seek to undermine CHOP participants' message or present a counter-message," but they believe their own "constitutional and other legal rights" were violated by the city's "unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood."</p><p>Some of the plaintiffs are landlords who claim there property was damaged, but others are working-class businesses like a liquor store, a tattoo parlor, and an auto repair shop whose owner alleges his son was assaulted by a man with a knife who broke into the shop and started a fire. The suit alleges despite multiple 911 calls, police never came to their aid.</p><p>Many reports indicated that at least during the daytime, the CHOP zone was a generally peaceful place of radical demonstration. But as the encampment's time winds down, this lawsuit is probably just the first chapter in a full accounting of the costs associated with this experiment in civic tolerance of anarchy. <em>- AF</em></p><h2><strong>BUSINESS &amp; ECONOMY</strong></h2><p><strong><div type="image" title="Chuck E. Cheese" height="1271" width="2543" msid="76633011" hostid="261"></div></strong></p><p><strong>Chuck E. Cheese filed for bankruptcy. </strong>The kids pizza entertainment chain was slammed by the pandemic. Or perhaps people didn't want to eat in a restaurant filled with giant singing rats. It was a bad week all-around for iconically goofy brands: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-segway-cops-and-tourists-2020-6">Segway is going to stop making Segways</a>. </p><h2><strong>LIFE</strong></h2><p><strong>The 15 best cities for millennials. </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-places-us-cities-for-millennials-ranked-2020-6">Cities where jobs are plentiful and life is fun.</a> Cambridge, MA tops the list, and San Francisco is second. </p><p><strong>A beautiful Italian town offers tourists free accommodation this summer. </strong><a href="https://www.insider.com/italian-village-offering-tourists-free-accommodation-summer-san-giovanni-2020-6">San Giovanni in Molise is gorgeous but struggling</a>, so it will put you up for nothing if you visit.  </p><h2><strong>THE BIG 3*</strong></h2><h2><strong><div type="image" title="Zealandia_topography" height="1043" width="1391" msid="76633015" hostid="261"></div></strong></h2><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/maps-reveal-eighth-continent-zealandia-underwater-2020-6"><strong>New maps reveal the size and shape of the lost 8th continent. </strong></a>Zealandia was submerged in the Pacific Ocean 30 million to 50 million years ago. and New Zealand is the biggest piece of it still above water. </p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-palm-beach-florida-mask-backlash-parks-and-recreation-2020-6"><strong>Twitter users liken Palm Beach masking squabble to Parks &amp; Rec.</strong></a> Residents complained furiously about the county's new masking requirement: "They want to throw God's wonderful breathing system out the door," said one woman. Twitter mocked it all. </p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-is-offering-20000-lunar-loo-build-a-toilet-challenge-2020-6"><strong>NASA offering a $20,000 prize for a better space toilet. </strong></a>They want one that will function both in space and on the moon. </p><p><em>*The most popular stories on Insider today.</em></p>

You Searched For "zealandia" and got 10 results

Mapping Zealandia: Scientists chart the tectonic secrets of Earth’s sunken 8th continent

Ankush Banerjee

Scientists finally finished mapping Earth's 8th continent Zealandia, helping them solve the lost continent's mysterious history

Jenny McGrath,Marianne Guenot

A fragment of a mysterious 8th continent is hiding under New Zealand - and it's twice as old as scientists thought

Aylin Woodward

Fossils found in New Zealand suggest the ancestor of all penguins lived on Earth's lost 8th continent, Zealandia

Susie Neilson

New maps reveal details about the size and shape of Earth's lost 8th continent, Zealandia, which disappeared under the Pacific Ocean

Aylin Woodward

Earth's newest continent 'Zealandia' was found thanks to a giant underwater land grab

Dave Mosher

Earth has a brand-new continent called 'Zealandia,' and it's been hiding in plain sight for ages

Dave Mosher

A new genetic analysis explains how penguins lost the ability to fly, headed south, and became excellent swimmers

Paola Rosa-Aquino

A lost 8th continent is hidden nearly 1,000 miles under Europe, new research shows. Scientists named it 'Greater Adria.'

Aylin Woodward

Why are masks political?

David Plotz,Henry Blodget,Ant…

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