Ancient continent lost for 200 MILLION years is discovered by scientists
A PREHISTORIC continent lost for 200 million years has been discovered underneath Mauritius after volcanic eruptions spewed out ancient secrets.
S scientists theorise there are multiple fragments of the continent scattered throughout the ocean
The landmass has been uncovered by researchers at the Witwatersrand University, in South Africa, who examined crystals freshly expelled from a volcanic eruption on Mauritius.
Famed as an idyllic getaway location, the island in the Indian Ocean is thought to have formed part of the ancient micro-continent Mauritia, which was created when India and Madagascar broke away from each other.
Mauritia is thought to have been part of the Gondwana supercontinent - which later became Africa, India, Australia and Antartica.
A fragment of the ancient continent, linking the 932 miles from India to Madagascar, was discovered by studying the mineral zircon, expelled during volcanic eruptions.
The team examined samples and found zircons dating back three billion years in a piece of the island’s six-million-year-old piece of igneous volcanic rock.
Lewis Ashwal, a professor of geology at Wits University, said: “Earth is made up of two parts – continents, which are old, and oceans, which are ‘young’.
The island in the Indian Ocean is thought to have formed part of the ancient micro-continent
“On the continents you find rocks that are over four billion years old, but you find nothing like that in the oceans, as this is where new rocks are formed.
“Mauritius is an island, and there is no rock older than 9 million years old on the island. However, by studying the rocks on the island, we have found zircons that are as old as 3 billion years.
“The fact that we have found zircons of this age proves that there are much older crustal materials under Mauritius that could only have originated from a continent.”
Scientists have found 'lost continent' under Mauritius
There are much older crustal materials under Mauritius that could only have originated from a continent
The lost continent of Mauritia began to form some 200 million years ago when Gondwana began to break up, and would have been a dangerous landmass peppered with volcanoes and susceptible to regular earthquakes.
Mr Ashwal continued: "According to the new results, this break-up did not involve a simple splitting of the ancient super-continent of Gondwana
"But rather, a complex splintering took place with fragments of continental crust of variable sizes left adrift within the evolving Indian Ocean basin.”
Mauritia is thought to have been part of the Gondwana supercontinent
Previously, ancient zircons have been found on the island but it was argued these could have washed up or blown there.
But the recent discovery underneath the volcanic eruption proves the minerals were already there.
The team examined samples and found zircons dating back three billion years
Dr Ashwal added: "The fact that we found the ancient zircons in rock, corroborates the previous study and refutes any suggestion of wind-blown, wave-transported or pumice-rafted zircons for explaining the earlier results.”
Published in the journal Nature Communications, the scientists theorise there are multiple fragments of the continent scattered throughout the Indian Ocean.