1.7-Billion-Year-Old Chunk of North America Found Sticking To Australia (livescience.com)

walterbyrd shares a report from Live Science: Geologists matching rocks from opposite sides of the globe have found that part of Australia was once attached to North America 1.7 billion years ago. Researchers from Curtin University in Australia examined rocks from the Georgetown region of northern Queensland. The rocks -- sandstone sedimentary rocks that formed in a shallow sea -- had signatures that were unknown in Australia but strongly resembled rocks that can be seen in present-day Canada. The researchers, who described their findings online Jan. 17 in the journal Geology, concluded that the Georgetown area broke away from North America 1.7 billion years ago. Then, 100 million years later, this landmass collided with what is now northern Australia, at the Mount Isa region.

"This was a critical part of global continental reorganization when almost all continents on Earth assembled to form the supercontinent called Nuna," Adam Nordsvan, Curtin University doctoral student and lead author of the study, said in a statement. Nordsvan added that Nuna then broke apart some 300 million years later, with the Georgetown area stuck to Australia as the North American landmass drifted away.

Comments

Theft and larceny

[TimothyHollins]

Isn't that why we sent the Australians over there in the first place?

Re:Theft and larceny

[OzPeter]

Isn't that why we sent the Australians over there in the first place?

Actually the reason that convicts were transported to Australia is because the Brits could no longer dump them in North America due to that pesky revolution thingy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Theft and larceny

[Mashiki]

Oh come on now. That's just because they couldn't dump them in the colonies anymore, they were still doing that in Upper and Lower Canada and the colonial state of Newfoundland. Despite what the wikipedia article says, the crown was still shipping them to north america until the very late 1700's(round about 1795ish), but only into lands "just far enough" to not make it an issue for the newly founded US. See there was even a trick to it, they would declare the prisoners being sent to an "unknown location" and then basically dump them in the territory or colonial state. Who'd then be responsible for well...everything, from feeding to housing, and so on while it "was in dispute with the crown." And that could take years, and in the mean time the prisoners would/could be forced onto a plantation while arguing with the crown over it.

Lot's of bits of history like that which really doesn't get fully covered. Here's an example from 1789, also covers some other stuff but worth the reading.

For those of us

[TFlan91]

For those of us that aren't geologists and saw "Nuna", but read/expected "Pangaea":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:For those of us

[jellomizer]

For most of us, even the highly educated, We have a High School or Middle School understanding of most topics. When we furthered our education, it for the most part had became specialized in particular areas, But for those who didn't specialize in that area, we have a limited understanding, in the topic. (Thank you for the link for additional information) Pangaea, was the latest Super Continent which we are shown during or basic education, as it is relatively recent enough that we could plainly see how the Continents fit together. "Nuna" had continental plates that do not look like what we know of, hence hard to teach to kids. And once we get older unless we study geology such topics isn't so relevant to other topics we choose to study.

This brings up the disturbing trends of people not believing the experts in fields, and some of them are in leadership positions who's actions causes change.
Now a leader may not follow the advice of the expert, because their may be factors beyond that particular field, that need to be weighed in, however these experts should be listened to as you gut instinct and general knowledge in most things are actually at a basic level.

Re:Bloody Americans.

[Holi]

Piss off, why you blaming us for some stupid Canadian rock?

Thing probably already apologized to you.

Fake News Ticker reports

[Plumpaquatsch]

President Trump demands immediate return of American property. Unnamed private investor will be building a golf resort on it.