A research result that India and Madagascar had "a lost continent" will be announced

ByAntoine Debroye

In the plate theory (plate tectonics), India and Madagascar originally were part of the gigantic continent spreading in the southern hemisphere named the Gondwana continent. The continent of Gondwana eventually divides to the east and west, the east further divided into India & Madagascar and Australia & Antarctica. And India moved to the Eurasian continent, leaving Madagascar Island, and it is thought that it became the arrangement like present.

However, there is another small continent between India and Madagascar, and research results have been announced that it may have disappeared with India's movement.

Archaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks establish ancient continental crust beneath Mauritius: Nature Communications
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14086


Long-lost continent found submerged deep under Indian Ocean | New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2119963-long-lost-continent-found-submerged-deep-under-indian-ocean/

South of Africa · Whitwaters UniversityLewis D. AshwallProfessors advocated in 2013 that the volcanic islands are located on the ancient continent. That candidate is Mauritius floating in the Indian Ocean.


Although the age of "Mauritius Island" is considered to be about 8 million years old, minerals that can be taken on the coast of the island ·ZirconIt is two billion years. It is thought that volcanic eruption carried zircon from ancient bedrock to the ground. This time, Professors Ash Wall et al. Discovered 3 billion years of zircon and given them the name of "Mauritia" as research targets. As a result, from the isotopic composition of the rock mass, "from Madagascar belongs to Mauritius IslandMascarin islands, Further across the Indian Ocean and across the Deccan Plateau, it was originally one continent ".

Dr. Ash Wall believes that "Mauritia" formed a small continent between India and Madagascar about 85 million years ago. At that time, India and Madagascar were closer than now. However, as India gradually moved in the direction of the Eurasian Continent, Madagascar did not move like India, so the interval will expand.

At this time the continent including "Mauritia" does not remain near Madagascar, but rather it stays pulled in the middle instead of sticking to India. At the University of New South WalesMartin van CrannerunkThe professor explained to the clay "It stretched thinly and it got separated soon". Most of the thinned "continent" has settled in the Indian Ocean, and it has become like the present shape.

One of the things considered as remains of the continent is the Calgados / Calahos archipelago in the northeast of Mauritius.


Other than that, the Chagos archipelago in the south of Maldives ... ...


The same is true for the Rakshadweep Islands (Rakkadibu Islands) in the southwest of India.