The islands of Reunion and Mauritius , very frequented by tourists, have just become a point of focus for scientists after discovering that they hide a microcontinent unknown until now, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience in its latest edition. Its authors assure that this microcontinent of the Indian Ocean, baptized as Mauritia , broke off approximately 60 million years ago , just at the time when Madagascar and India were separated. And that since then it has remained sunk and hidden under large masses of lava. Had it remained on the surface, it would have been an island the size of Crete.
What aroused the suspicions of scientists was the discovery of large sand grains on the beaches of Mauritius that contained semi-precious zircons , some with ages estimated between 660n and 1970 million years. The only possible explanation is that they were washed away by lava as it emerged from the underlying continental crust. In other words, the found grains of sand indicate that under the islands there are fragments of a continent that never emerged .
Submerged microcontinents or "ghost continents" could be much more frequent on the planet than previously thought, according to the researchers, inviting the continuation of the search for these territories.
