Zealandia: There is a drowned Pacific Ocean continent we didn’t know about

“If we could pull the plug on the oceans it would be clear to everyone we have mountain chains and a big high-standing continent above the ocean crust,” Mortimer said. He was lead author of the paper titled “Zealandia: Earth’s hidden continent”, which says the new discoveries prove what had long been suspected. “Since about the 1920s, from time to time in geology papers people used the word ‘continental’ to describe various parts of New Zealand and the Catham Islands and New Caledionia,” Mortimer said.

“The difference now is that we feel we’ve gathered enough information to change ‘continental’ to the noun, ‘continent’,” Mortimer said. He added that geologists early in the previous century had found granite from sub-antarctic islands near New Zealand and metaphormic rocks on New Caledonia that were indicative of continental geology.

An illustration shows what geologists are calling Zealandia. (Reuters Photo)

If the recent discovery is accepted by the scientific community, cartographers will probably have to add an eighth continent to future maps and atlases. “The paper we’ve written unashamedly sticks to empirical observations and descriptions,” Mortimer said. “The litmus test will really be if ‘Zealandia’ appears in maps and atlases in five or 10 year’s time.”

“Zealandia” is believed to have broken away from Australia about 80 million years ago and sank beneath the sea as part of the break up of the super-continent known as Gondwanaland,” he adds.