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Science

'Lost Continent' Rises Again With New Expedition (smithsonianmag.com) 62

Tens of millions of years after it disappeared under the waters of the Pacific Ocean, scientists have completed the first explorations of what some scientists are calling a hidden continent. From a report: During a two-month ocean voyage this summer, a team of more than 30 scientists from 12 countries explored the submerged landmass of Zealandia on an advanced research vessel and collected samples from the seabed. Scientists were able to drill into the ocean floor at depths of more than 4,000 feet, collecting more than 8,000 feet of sediment cores that provides a window into 70 million years of geologic history, reports Georgie Burgess for ABC News. More than 8,000 fossils from hundreds of species were also collected in the drilling, giving scientists a glimpse at terrestrial life that lived tens of millions of years ago in the area. "The discovery of microscopic shells of organisms that lived in warm shallow seas, and of spores and pollen from land plants, reveal that the geography and climate of Zealandia were dramatically different in the past," expedition leader Gerald Dickens said in a statement. While more than 90 percent of Zealandia is now submerged under more than a kilometer (two-thirds of a mile) of water, when it was above the surface, it likely provided a path that many land animals and plants could have used to spread across the South Pacific, notes Naaman Zhou of the Guardian.
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'Lost Continent' Rises Again With New Expedition

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  • by ngc5194 ( 847747 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @01:25PM (#55271005)
    If the expedition team encounters any antediluvian buildings that appear to be built based on a non-Euclidean geometry, resist the urge to open any doors. Just trust me on this.
  • was it mu? or lemuria?
  • by myowntrueself ( 607117 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @01:46PM (#55271147)

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

    this is a re-discovery!

    • I watched the first two episodes and now I'm afraid of anything with "Discovery" in its name.

      I mean, what the hell did they do to the Klingons? They look like constipated fish!

      • I watched the first two episodes and now I'm afraid of anything with "Discovery" in its name.

        I mean, what the hell did they do to the Klingons? They look like constipated fish!

        Klingons always had constipation problems. Why do you think Whorf drank so much prune juice?

  • by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @02:04PM (#55271251)

    So the Kivis think they can promote their tiny piece of land to a continent just by declaring it one? Whom they think they are, Europe?

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @02:43PM (#55271551) Journal
    One just can go about losing continents at the drop of a hat. We need strict audit procedures and chain of custody rules. We need verifiable data.

    We must spare no expense in finding out who is responsible for the loss of the continent, and take measures to garner salary and benefits to compensate for the loss.

  • Rock climbing.

  • "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".
  • Also known in Oceanic mythology by names like Kavai, Havai, Kavaiki, Havaiki, Kavaiki, or Hawaiki, after which Hawai'i was named (its discoverers believing they had found the mythical lost land where all their peoples descend from).

    Or as I like to call it, Auei [geekofalltrades.org].

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Of course the pretty clear lesson of global warming today and rising sea levels, pretty much a demonstration of what the lost lands were. Coastal plains flooded underneath the end of the ice age sea level rise of around 120m https://www.giss.nasa.gov/rese... [nasa.gov] (look they are finally using metric, good on you NASA). This substantiated by underwater caves with stalagmites and stalactites and well as cores of all major coral reefs proving that they were totally destroyed as marine biospheres when they were somet

  • This article avoids the trap, but I've seen other news coverage calling Zealandia the eighth continent. This can't be right. For Zealandia to count as a continent, your definition of continent has to be something like a sizeable region of continental crust separated from other such regions. With this in mind, the count of continents would be Eurasia/Africa, the Americas, Antarctica, Australia. If you think it big enough to be continental, Zealandia would come in at number five. (Even the Eurasia/Africa sepa

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )

      As compared to Europe ; a much better case for being a continent is India.
      Its large, its separated by natural Geographic boundaries which have prevented cultural and linguistic mixing (Himalayas and Thar Desert) and it sits on its own tectonic plate.

      Yet we call Indians Asians even though they dont look the same, dont speak similar languages, dont wear similar clothes, dont eat similar food as Asians.

      What is defined as a continent is a matter of politics than Geology or Geography.

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