New Zealand May Be the Tip of a Submerged Continent (theoutline.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report on The Outline: A group of geologists believe it is time to name a new continent. A paper published in the March/April edition of GSA Today, the journal for the Geological Society of America, lays out the case for Zealandia as the seventh and youngest geological continent. In the past, New Zealand was thought to be part of a collection of "islands, fragments, and slices," the authors wrote, but it's now understood to be part of a solid landmass. New Zealand is essentially the highest mountains of a 1.9 million square mile landmass that is 94 percent underwater, according to the paper. The authors believe it is both large and isolated enough to qualify as a continent. They note that it is elevated relative to the oceanic crust, as befits a continent, and its distinctiveness and thickness are also on par with continents one through six. What does it matter if Zealandia is officially a continent? Reclassifying the area would encourage geologists to include it in studies of comparative continental rifting and continent-ocean boundaries.

Comments

Re:Redefining words so we can make a "discovery"

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as if you go to the grocery shop and buy "1 kg" (vulgar language) of potatoes, when what you're buying is "1 kp" of potatoes.

That is incorrect. You are buying 1kg (mass, amount of substance) of potatoes, not 1kp (amount of force exerted by Earth's gravity on 1kg of substance). The balance in the grocery shop might use measurement of 1kp force to verify that you are taking 1kg of potatoes, but that is the end of 1kp use. You leave the shop with 1kg of potatoes.

Re:What? WHAT?

[PPH]

Ocean Floor.

Nope. Different composition entirely. Continental plates ate lighter and 'float' on top of the mantle (exact details will better be explained by a real geologist). But the composition of continents and ocean floor is different.

There are bits of ocean floor that just happen to be above sea level and are dry land. Zeelandia, on the other hand, is a continental plate that is largely submerged.