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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.
In Google Earth you could always easily see a shallow landmass around New Zealand, so what's new here?
New Zealand we love you. You don't have to be like Australia. We are worried about you. Just be yourself. You don't have to be a continent.
A Continent is a landmass, not a slightly shallower section of ocean.
There is no clear, universally agreed definition of what a continent is. Australia was an island not long ago - and Europe is a different continent from Asia, which is absurd, in terms of geography. And there is an argument in favour of calling New Zealand a continent: it is part of a piece of continental crust, which sits on its own, tectonic plate. I would say it is as good a definition as any. Whichever way we look at it, it is hard to argue that there are more than 6 continents, unless we count New Zealand.
Extradite Kim Dot Com, and it will re-emerge.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Just like planets, species etc. It comes from a desire to categorize things even though on occasions things cannot be categorized or the criteria for doing it doesn't work.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
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.
There is no clear, universally agreed definition of what a continent is.
There is only one solution: we need an international committee to define what a continent is, and then decide that NZ is a dwarf continent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
A Continent is a landmass, not a slightly shallower section of ocean.
Except that we've redefined the term "continent" many times already. In common parlance, "continent" in French means mainland, and in the UK, that definition survives in the tendency to refer to "mainland Europe" as "the continent". The original Latin root means continuing/continuous, and as there is no surface discontinuity between Europe, Asia and Africa, the notion of "continent" as we understand it was completely arbitrary, right up until the discovery of plate tectonics. Even then, people have been reluctant to follow plate tectonics to its logical conclusion -- note how the Indian plate is referred to as a "subcontinent" even though it's a distinct plate from Asia. It's also worth noting that various languages have different numbers of continents, each making the distinction on different geographical, geological, ethnic or political bases.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
I think bazmail is trying to point out that there is a huge number of small islands around the planet. And that most have shallow seas around them.
Hawaii would be an exception to this in that it's a chain of deep sea volcanoes.
Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There's also this one but it's not the right one for the story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There is no clear, universally agreed definition of what a continent is.
I go with the technical definition: big ass island
We'll make great pets
> as there is no surface discontinuity between Europe, Asia and Africa, the notion of "continent" as we understand it was completely arbitrary
There's a rather large surface discontinuity between Africa and Eurasia, comprised of the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Prior to 1869, these two separate landmasses used to touch, but just because I touch you with my finger doesn't make us one body.
But we've always been at war with Eurasia.
Close, Hawaii isn't quite a chain of volcanoes. It's a series of islands that happen to catalog movement over a hotspot in the middle of the Pacific ocean. You can read more about it here. It's actually quite interesting how an island forms as the plate moves, then after moving it's no longer on the hot spot and erodes away. There's many more 'islands' underneath the ocean surface in the Hawaii chain.
I learned in school, 40 years ago, a continent is a big plate floating on the earth magma. That is actually a pretty strict definition. Plates are called "continental shelf", mere islands like Hawaii or Japan are not on a continental shelf.
No idea why the english/american wikipedia article disagrees, I guess because it is written by hobbyists?
The problem with this definition is that California would be on a different continent than the rest of the continental USA.
(The San Andreas fault separates the north american plate from the pacific plate)
So I suppose that's why everyday american-english wants to use different continent classifications than official scientific ?
And similarily. India is its own separate plate from the rest of eurasia. Also, traditionally europe and asia have been considered different continents, although they are on the same eurasian plate.
All in all, people have get used to some world view (list of continent), and it's hard to ask them to change as more details emerge and the scientific view shifts a bit.
(see: reptile and birds and mammals
in the common use : turtles and lizards are reptiles, the rest are not.
from an evolutionnary and classification point of view: if you include both turtles and lizards the thing you call "reptile" is such a big chunk of the tree, that birds and mammals appear actually inside of it as sub-branches)
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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.
Have gnu, will travel.
Just like planets, species etc.
Ceres and Pluto suggested we call it a dwarf continent.
More importantly, Zelandia crust is separated from Australian crust by a (small amount of) oceanic crust. This is different from volcanic island arcs accumulated on the west coast of California or India/Asia.
Continents, races, oceans, senses; all 19th century, easy-to-memorize lists for primary schoolchildren but completely unscientific.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
So... Does this mean that we can make Pluto a planet again? I'm pretty sure that if you asked the majority of the public, their world view would be that it is.
And, right the next day after your comment, comes this /. story about making pluto a planet again.
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