Under the waters of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, the remains of a lost continent are hidden: it would be the Mauritia continent that was part of the supercontinent Gondwana, disintegrated 200 million years ago. The study has been led by the geologist of the University of Witwandersrand (Johannesburg) Lewis Ashwal together with the experts Michael Wiedenbeck, of the German Geosciences Research Center (GFZ), and Trond Torsvik, of the University of Oslo (Norway).
Researchers have discovered tiny fragments of a mineral called zircon that are up to about 3 billion years old . The unusual thing here is that the island of Mauritius – where the remains have been found – is barely between 7 and 10 million years old.
If the rocks of this paradise island are not more than 10 million years old. How is it possible that geologists have found zircons that are 3 billion years old?
The explanation for this geological enigma is that the lava from volcanic eruptions once covered the remains of this small prehistoric continent, known as Mauritia in which a piece of the crust ended up detaching from the supercontinent Gondwana (which is currently Africa, South America, Antarctica, India and Australia).
The rock in which the zircon has been found is a 6-million-year-old trachyte. This discovery corroborates previous studies about the lost continent, regarding plate tectonics and the theory of the displacement of the plates that make up the earth’s crust. Previous research suggested that the supercontinent Gondwana would have been divided by complex fragmentation in the present continents Africa, South America, Antarctica, India and Australia, from which ‘continental splinters’ would be released; so the Indian Ocean would have several pieces of that lost continent called Mauritia , such as the one that has just been discovered.
In fact, geologists are convinced that there are many fragments of continental crust – of highly variable sizes – under other islands in the Indian Ocean , such as Cargados Carajos, Laquedivas and the Chagos archipelago.
The work has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
