New Zealand May Be the Tip of a Submerged Continent (theoutline.com) 121
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.
Re:Redefining words so we can make a "discovery" (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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That's OK as far as it goes but there is already a word that fits but that wasn't used: subcontinent
The NZ plaque is also smaller than the Indian subcontinental plaque making it clear that "Newzealandia is a continent" is either journalistic inflation or Kiwi puffery.
Re: So which continent is NZ pushed into? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Redefining words so we can make a "discovery" (Score:4, Interesting)
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Categorization is always to some extent artificial. Are viruses alive? What constitutes a planet? What is a species? All you can do in some cases is accept that there is an inevitable fuzziness, and that a concept can at best explain the majority of cases with the outliers either being categorized in or out of the set depending upon how many attributes are shared.
The definition of a continent has become considerably more complex as we learn more about how the geology of Earth works, and so far as I understa
Re:Redefining words so we can make a "discovery" (Score:5, Funny)
Just like planets, species etc.
Ceres and Pluto suggested we call it a dwarf continent.
Re:Redefining words so we can make a "discovery" (Score:5, Funny)
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 [youtube.com]
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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.
If you figure that out could you get one for international labor standards too? That one's slightly more important...
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I think they prefer to be called Hobbits. Hobbit Continent.
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What are you going on about? Some snark just so you can toss "merkin" in? Oh, we're so insulted, how can we take the shame?
Your primary statement of fact was unnecessary. No-one was making any argument against it. Re-stating it did not provide more context.
The GP was an amusing post, and, frankly, the first joke that came to my mind.
Why *your* butthurt? Dwarf mind?
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Sine when was Australia only an Island? It was called a continent in the 18th century once it was clear it was a large single land mass, with some calling it the largest island as well. By the late 18th century it was defined as a continent once a complete circumnaviation was done that proved exactly what the single land mass was. So basically for the entire length of white settlement, it has been a continent.
Up until the early 18th century due to the boundaries being unclear, it was thought to be part of A
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There is no clear, universally agreed definition of what a continent is.
I go with the technical definition: big ass island
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1. Europe. 2. Asia. 3 Africa. 4 Australia. 5 North America 6. South America 7 Antarctica.
8 New Zealand?
I count 8 not 7 and certainly not 6.
Usage vs science (Score:2)
1. Europe. 2. Asia. 3 Africa. 4 Australia. 5 North America 6. South America 7 Antarctica.
8 New Zealand?
In the common every day usage, yes. (Although most people skip Antartica).
The thing is, when you look into details and apply scientific definition (plate tectonics), lots of things shift aroudn :
Europe and asia are part of the same eurasia plate.
India is its own separate plate (and himalaya is the bump caused by both plates colliding)
California is actually on the same pacific plate as hawaii, not on the nothern american plate as the rest of the continental USA (hance the san andreas fault)
etc.
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There is no shortage of dweebs lately that think "America" is one continent and thereby want to divorce the term from meaning a USA citizen.
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The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is mostly used in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan. [wikipedia.org]
(joke) Obviously this is Russian propaganda (/joke)
By the way, there are five senses:
1) Sight 2) Hearing 3) Smell 4) Taste 5) Touch 6) Balance 7) Proprioception .... and so on.
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There is no clear, universally agreed definition of what a continent is.
I've been to all 7 continents. And even if they add an 8th one in NZ, I don't care as I've been there too !
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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 where is the line Europe/Asia? Most maps include all of Russia as part of Asia. Some maps draw a line through Russia. My kids even have a geography book that shows Russia as being wholly in Europe.
Re:Redefining words so we can make a "discovery" (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Can you repeat this in the vulgar/common language of the English speakers? I don't understand what you're saying here. What in the hell is 1 kp of potatoes? And why do you get to declare physical geology the arbiter of continents, not geology as a whole? And why is Eurafrasia necessarily a "Wrong Definition"?
This is not like how we differentiate between arms and legs. This is more like how we decide between saying you have five fingers on a hand of which one is a thumb, vs. saying you have four fingers
Re:Killopond (Score:1)
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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?
Now it seems some scientists argue that NZ has its own shelf ... if that it is the case: it is a continent.
California (Score:4, Interesting)
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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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)
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.
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The problem with this definition is that California would be on a different continent than the rest of the continental USA.
Well, it seems to reflect how most Americans feel.
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I learned in school, 40 years ago, a continent is a big plate floating on the earth magma.
What's funny about this is that just a decade earlier, when I was in school, continental drift was still a crazy crackpot theory.
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You're lucky. They revoked phlogiston theory two weeks before my chemistry finals.
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This answer goes for you and for those you downvoted my previous message.
Can you repeat this in the vulgar/common language of the English speakers?
Vulgar/common language is the language people speaks freely in the streets and might not be proper or exact in its meaning.
So, stop thinking everyone wants to insult/attack you ('cause most people doesn't care to do so).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There, you can read: "It is the smallest of the seven traditional continents in the English conception." Meaning
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Another thing is that, "in the vulgar/common language of English speakers", you call it "Australian Continent", which is WRONG (main island is in one continental platform and some of its islands are in others).
Australia is both a continent and a country, and each of those contexts refers to slightly different sets of land-masses. A country can be spread out over multiple continents, like Denmark (+Greenland) and the U.K. (Great Britiain + various territories such as the B.V.I.), and a continent can be spread over multiple tectonic plates.
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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 re
Mediterranean Sea (Score:3)
> 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.
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"surface discontinuity" major shipping route (Score:2)
The statement was "there is no surface discontinuity". There is in fact a major shipping route separating Africa from Eurasia at Suez. Yeah at Suez the water isn't very deep, so it's handy that the claim was "SURFACE discontinuity".
More importantly, if we touch our fingertips together, that doesn't make us one person. That makes us two different people touching at one small spot. Prior the mid-1800s, Africa and Eurasia were two continents touching at one small spot. Now they are 100% separated by water.
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I guess every area under water might then classify as a 'continent'?
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Continents, races, oceans, senses; all 19th century, easy-to-memorize lists for primary schoolchildren but completely unscientific.
New Sea-Land (Score:1)
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Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There's also this one but it's not the right one for the story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Here in Australia we just call it "The eastern most state".
But its cool, as long as they don't declare independence its all fine. One country, many systems.
(They call us "West island")
Google Earth already had that info (Score:2)
Re:Google Earth already had that info (Score:5, Interesting)
In Google Earth you could always easily see a shallow landmass around New Zealand, so what's new here?
There are lots of interesting things abut this. For one thing it would be interesting to know exactly how much of this continent was above sea level during the last glacial maximum. The same goes for the Atlantic area. There are several islands in the Atlantic that are now either sunken, smaller than they were then or just reefs now but that would have been much larger during this period and could have served as stop-over points for people on a trans oceanic migration to N-America. There is a little flash App of the area that allows you to drop the sea levels: http://sahultime.monash.edu.au... [monash.edu.au] Seems New Zealand was at least twice as big as it is today about 20k years ago and that it was surrounded by islands that are now sunken. Makes me wish could drop sea levels in Google Earth.
Aren't all islands... (Score:2)
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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.
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Stop copying Australia (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Howz about we call them a "dwarf continent".
Call the new continent "Gimli".
You mean 8th continent? (Score:1)
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So you didn't read the article, then? 2. and 3. in your list are defined as 'Eurasia'.
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I'm at war with Uranus!
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Extradite Kim Dot Com (Score:4, Funny)
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Because he's so fat! His weight is pushing the continent beneath the ocean.
At last! (Score:2)
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Oh, ghu, we're never going to hear the end of this......
Really, ozzies love kiwis, we wouldn't have anyone to look down on, otherwise.
Or beat at rugby and cricket.
My nephews are kiwis, I love 'em both.
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Cthulhu fhtagn! (Score:1)
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Sea Rights (Score:1)
What does it matter if Zealandia is officially a continent?
New Zealand now gets to claim a large amount of mineral and sea resources from the continental shelf and around it.
94% submerged "continent"? (Score:2, Funny)
Looks like Mother Earth has a better batting average than New Zealand.
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Basically the crust is expanding at mid-oceanic ridges [britannica.com]. The molten magma that surfaces in those regions solidifies into thin crustal plates. These plates are pushed apart until they meet resistance (other plates), and begin to bump up against each other. When they do that, the crust squashes and thickens - both above and below the water. The part that thickens abov
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Do not confuse this.... (Score:1)
What? WHAT? (Score:1)
I'm not confused about this. From my educational experience, you know what we call submerged continents?
Ocean Floor.
C'mon, stop this.
Re:What? WHAT? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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That is only HALF a discovery (Score:2)
The other half should be more of a concern.
New Zealand has long been using this submerged landmass to conceal an impressive stockpile of 20 megaton nuclear missiles.
At this point, experienced journalists should ask:
a. Where are those missiles aimed?
b. Who has access to the button that launches these missiles?
c. How many warheads are in that stockpile?
d. How big is this submerged landmass? (How long have you known, etc)
At that point, I guess none of this stuff matters. But fault all the Slashdot eds till the
Oblig. Global Warming (Score:2)
Hypnotoad underlines (Score:2)
Not a peep yet about Mordor (Score:2)
We saw Mordor sinking at the end of "Return of the King", so that must be the rest of the missing NZ continent.
Budget (Score:2)
A group of geologists believe it is time to name a new continent.
And seek funds to study it. It's not like they wouldn't look at it had in only been some interesting structures on the ocean floor. But now they can request a separate package of funding under it's own name.
climate change deniers (Score:2)
There are already 7 Continents (Score:1)
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Yup, this was basic fucking elementary school stuff THIRTY YEARS AGO.
Apparently the Geological Society of America needs to go the fuck back to school.
Atlantis! (Score:2)