- Geologists made headlines in 2017 after their announcement of the discovery of Zealandia.
- It is a vast continent of 1.89 million sq miles (4.9 million sq km) and is around six times the size of Madagascar.
- Zealandia is a continent because of the kinds of rocks found there, despite that it is thin and is submerged.
In 1642, Abel Tasman, a skilled Dutch seaman who loved tough justice, was confident that there was a vast continent in the southern hemisphere and determined to find it.
He believed he had discovered the great southern continent, obviously it was hardly a commercial utopia that he imagined and then never returned.
BBC reported that Tasman was just thankful, actually there was an undiscovered continent.
A group of geologists made headlines in 2017 when they announced the discovery of Zealandia – Te RiuaMāui in the Maori language. It’s a vast continent measuring 1.89 million square miles (4.9 million square kilometers) and about six times the size of Madagascar, the announcer reported.
According to the BBC report, the world’s encyclopedias, maps and search engines have long been dictated by the fact that there are only seven continents, but the team confidently informed the world that this was wrong.
After all, there are eight, and the latest addition is breaking all records as the smallest, slimmest and youngest in the world. The problem is that 94% is underwater and only a handful of islands like New Zealand emerge from their sea depths. It had been hiding in sight the whole time, “reported the BBC.
Andy Tulloch, a geologist on the New Zealand Crown Research Institute GNS Science, who turned into a part of the group that determined Zealandia, said: “This is an instance of the way some thing very apparent can take some time to uncover.” This all is simply the begging as 4 years on, and the continent is as enigmatic as ever, it’s far guarded beneath6,560 ft (2km) of water, BBC reported.
According to geologists, Zealandia is a continent due to the type of rock found there, although it is thin and underwater, the seabed consists more only of woody like basalt, while the continental crust consists more of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks like granite, slate and Limestone.
According to the report, geologists still find the eighth continent very intriguing, it is still unclear how Zealandia managed to hold together when it is so thin and doesn’t break up into tiny micro-continents.
