English explorers claim to have discovered a sunken continent hidden beneath Iceland and the surrounding ocean.
Durham – An earthquake catastrophe is currently shaking Turkey and Syria.
The reasons for the environmental catastrophe lie in the plate tectonics of the earth.
When the plates on the outermost layer of the earth, the earth's crust, drift away from each other or collide, it can cause noticeable tremors.
The research deals intensively with the processes on the lithosphere, i.e. the continental plates.
English scientists now suspect that they have made a groundbreaking discovery.
They are convinced they have found the remains of an ancient continent.
"Icelandia": Researchers apparently discover continent between Greenland and the Faroe Islands
The British researcher Professor Gillian Foulger and her team from Durham University want to have discovered the remains of an old continent directly under Iceland, which is said to measure twice the area of Germany.
This apparently extends from Greenland to the Faroe Islands, as also reported
by wetter.de
.
The research results of the scientists should therefore actually give conclusions about the previously unknown continent.
Greenland and Europe originally separated in plate tectonics, so Greenland moved with the North American plate from then on.
The plate movements in the north created new ocean floor in the south of the Reykjanes Ridge.
The researchers found that a block of continental crust was being pinched between the converging mid-ocean ridges.
The Icelandic microcontinent "Icelandia".
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A sunken continent is said to lie dormant under Iceland, researchers from England want to have proven this.
© imago/Jens Ickler
"Icelandia": Research team from England apparently discovers continental plate under Iceland
This has been pulled apart over millions of years, creating a great land bridge that stretches flat from Greenland to the edge of the Faroe Plate.
This tongue was subsequently covered by magma from active volcanoes and subsided after the connection with the Faroe Islands was lost.
As a result, everything except Iceland was flooded, according to the findings.
The research team is now working on the question of whether Iceland actually has a gigantic crust from an old continent.
However, the measurement turns out to be extremely complicated.
Since such deep drillings are impossible, this will have to be researched through the electrical conductivity and the search for zirconium crystals from the interior of the crust.
Researcher Professor Gillian Foulger: 'Until now, Iceland has confused geologists'
There are already enough indications that it could be a continental crust.
The depth of the sea in the area of "Icelandia" was remarkably shallow, and the thickness of the crust is also important.
"Until now, Iceland has puzzled geologists because existing theories that it consists of and is surrounded by oceanic crust are not supported by multiple geologic data.
For example, the crust beneath Iceland is over 40 km thick - seven times thicker than normal oceanic crust.
It just couldn't be explained," Professor Foulger is quoted as saying by
The Nortern Echo
.
When the team considered the possibility “that this thick crust is continental, suddenly our data all made sense.
This immediately led us to realize that the continental region was much larger than Iceland itself - there's a hidden continent right there under the sea," says Foulger.
Iceland may be just the tip of a submerged, yet unknown to the science continent, resting deep under the waves of Atlantic Ocean.
reported a team led by prof.
Gillian Foulger from Durham University, UK.
WOW pic.twitter.com/xl3DkFcmES
— Lukas Rox (@rox_lukas) July 15, 2021
New continent "Icelandia": Theses by Gillian Foulger could bring many new insights
If the theses about the new continent continue to be true, it would also mean that the huge continent of Pangea, which existed around 250 million years ago and enclosed the entire landmass of the earth, has not completely broken up after all.
The results also call into question the long-held scientific assumption about the extent of the oceanic and continental crust in the North Atlantic region and the formation of volcanic islands such as Iceland.
(ajr)
List of rubrics: © imago/Jens Ickler