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Scientists Discover Evidence of a 'Lost Continent' Under the Indian Ocean (earthsky.org)
Scientists at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa say they've discovered evidence of a "lost continent" beneath the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. According to EarthSky, the evidence of the "lost continent" may be leftover from the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, which started to break up around 200 million years ago. The evidence itself "takes the form of ancient zircon minerals found in much-younger rocks." From the report: Geologist Lewis Ashwal of Wit University led a group studying the mineral zircon, found in rocks spewed up by lava during volcanic eruptions. Zircon minerals contain trace amounts of radioactive uranium, which decays to lead and can thus be accurately dated. Ashwal and his colleagues say they've found remnants of this mineral far too old to have originated on the relatively young island of Mauritius. They believe their work shows the existence of an ancient continent, which may have broken off from the island of Madagascar, when Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica split up and formed the Indian Ocean. Ashwal explained in a statement: "Earth is made up of two parts -- continents, which are old, and oceans, which are "young." 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." The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
It was referenced in several Japanese video games.
I mean, come on!
They discovered the ground and they say they found it just lying there under a bunch of other ground that was covering it up? That is pretty special.
And was its ruler Namor or Aquaman?
Let me know if they find a mirror that answers to the name of Persilian.
Forget Atlantis, I've been telling everyone about Dino Island for decades. It's where velociraptors evolved into birds and wiped out all of the other dinosaurs.
... is gonna be pissed.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Qui-Gon Jinn and Wanda????
Shit.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
First, it is a tiny continental fragment, not a whole continent. Second, their evidence is based only tiny crystals washed ashore, as all island is covered in more recent lava. I will trust this more when they actually drill through that one or two km of lava to recover the actual ancient continental crust.
Right, although Lewis Ashwal looks quite white to me. Oh, the wonders of being able to use a simple Google search...
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
The amount of techtonic shifts and activities without major earthquakes in 6000 years makes one really appreciate the book of Genesis more
http://saveie6.com/
Firstly, Wegener's work hasn't been the norm for a very, very long time - it was roundly rejected in his lifetime, and only came back into vogue in the 1960s when computer simulations made a much stronger argument for the closeness of the fit. It really got going later on when, thanks to modern diving technology, we were able to go dive down where the predicted seams were - and indeed find the magma welling up through the cracks.
Secondly - this does not, in any way, contradict that theory. It merely suggests that there is an extra piece to the puzzle that's been lost. It doesn't change how the other pieces moved.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Yeah ... never mind that it is a peer reviewed publication by an academic from one of the top universities in the world (according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings). The fact that he might be black (but actually isn't) is far more important because, you know, science only happens in "white" countries.
I'm so glad Donald Trump is in charge now ... he will put the natives in their place. A 140 character Twitter message carries so much more meaning than anything a published academic has to say!
You are probably a person who believes that the pyramids in Egypt and Mesoamerica were built by aliens because some crazy white people said so. If it's white its right, right?
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
Hey, that's mine! I was just storing it there till later
- God
Ancient Tamil literature mentions many places and things that were "taken by the Sea". The city of South Madurai where the First Tamil Sangam (Institute) was established. The river Pahtruli, the first ever grammar book of Tamil called Agasthiam, the five great epics associated with the First Sangam were all taken by the sea. The oldest extant Tamil book is a grammar book, called Tholkappiam (literally Old Literature) is believed to be derivative of the lost book Agasthiam.
Since Homo sapiens broke out of Africa just 75,000 - 100,000 years ago it is commonly believed by the scientists that these events did not take place in geological time. The most common explanation was that, these were the folk memories of the ending of the last ice-age, 9000 years ago. Sea levels rose, inexorably and the coastal communities moved slowly to the higher ground, each generation remembering that they used to live where the sea was. The places mentioned in the fragments of Tamil literature must have been in the continental shelf just south of Cape Comarin.
In the Tsunami of 2004, people claim seeing a temple in the sea bed when the seas retreated before the onslaught of the tsunami off the coast of Mahabalipuram. The local legend claims the present shore temple is the seventh in the series, as the previous six were "taken by the Sea".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It is drastically different from the Flood legends of Hindu, Sumerian and Abrahamic Flood Legends. "God was angry at the sinfulness of the world and He destroyed most of Humanity, sparing a selected few" is common to these religions. Hindu Noah is called Manu. He was spared by Lord Vishnu who came in the form a giant fish. Sumerian Noah is called Ziusudra. Another common thing between these faith is the Indo-European language family. Since proto-Indo-European was spoken in the region north-east of the present day black sea, the speculation is: The ending of the ice age, raised the level of the Mediterranean sea so much, it overtopped the isthmus of Bhosporus, making it the Straits of Bhosporus. Black sea was a fresh water lake before. The Flood created by this overtopping was sudden and catastrophic and the people on the North-East shores barely escaped and scattered. They took with them the story of the Flood and the Indo-European language with them and slowly filled up the lands of the Levant, Mesopotamia, and then the Indus and Gangetic plains.
It is an interesting speculation. Not much of evidence to it, not even an "Ancient Aliens" like documentary in History channel.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Physical meetings of a club have an aural limitation. Forums do not. We are able to read any number of posts and make our own value judgement, which is not true when many people are trying to, or wish to, speak at once in meatspace.
No amount of posts to the contrary will make blacks any less human and capable; make the earth 5,000 years old; make god real; turn the holocaust into a myth; etc.
The only real challenge here on slashdot is that of bad moderation, and that has been with us for some time, with valid opinions getting buried by same, and others being lost due to being presented anonymously at levels below the default (or ill-advisedly set) reading threshold.
Being disagreed with is not a serious problem. Being made invisible is.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Here's the satellite view on Google maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mauritius/@-13.1797616,57.7735312,2289136m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x217c504df94474c9:0x4203d9c2116bd031!8m2!3d-20.348404!4d57.552152
It kind of looks like Japan.
Anybody could have found this by merely playing with any of the numerous views of the ocean floor we've had in the last few decades, though it is neat to see evidence of it having previously been above water with notable signs of life.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
And yet they are unable to master the English language. Acquiring one's native tongue is not rocket science.
The supreme irony of your comment is that all the best America speakers of the English language are African-American.
In Hollywood, the famously silky, powerfully emotional voices are all black men: Morgan Friedman, James Earl Jones, Samuel Jackson. In music, the fast talking, rhythmic, expressive poetry of rap has taken the globe by storm. (Heck, I personally dislike rap, but its influence is undeniable.) In politics, the best public speaker for making complex topics understandable to general audiences in half a century is Barack Obama.
Racists are so blind that they can be orbiting the planet in a space shuttle and still proclaim the earth flat. Whether it is geology or language, they are fervently stupid.
You are probably a person who believes that the pyramids in Egypt and Mesoamerica were built by aliens because some crazy white people said so.
There's movies and series about it, so it must be true! And Zero Point modules will feed all our energy needs, cleanly, for free.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
walk into Gondwana
Probably caused it to sink eh?