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Beneath the waves in the southwest Pacific Ocean lies a mostly hidden realm — dubbed Zealandia — that deserves to be called a continent, geologists say.
Geophysical data suggest that a region spanning 5 million square kilometres, which includes New Zealand and New Caledonia, is a single, intact piece of continental crust and is geologically separate from Australia, a team of scientists from New Zealand, Australia and New Caledonia argue in the March/April issue of GSA Today. (see 'Hidden crust' [Ed. Note: this refers to a map in source article.])
"If you could pull the plug on the world's oceans, then Zealandia would probably long ago have been recognized as a continent," says team leader Nick Mortimer, a geologist at GNS Science in Dunedin, New Zealand.
However, there is no international body in charge of designating official continents, and so the researchers must hope that enough of their colleagues agree to recognize the landmass. Otherwise, their proposal could remain more of a theoretical wish than a radical reshaping of what every child has to learn in geography class.
Mortimer, N. et al. GSA Today http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/GSATG321A.1 (2017).
(Score: 2, Informative) by isj on Sunday February 19 2017, @01:47PM
And if there were it would probably not be helpful.
Highly relevant CPG Grey video: "What are Continents?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34 [youtube.com]
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @03:50PM
By the commonly accepted definition Zealandia is a dwarf continent.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @08:01PM
I am not sure why they would call it "Zealandia"; apart from racial bias of course.
Papa-tu-a-Nuku would be a better name since the New Zealand Maori legend of Maui "fishing" up a portion of Papa-tu-a-Nuku which became NZ. Rather appropriate story it turns out.
http://www.maori.org.nz/korero/default.php?pid=sp49&parent=44 [maori.org.nz]
There are probably other cultural myths from the area that could serve also.
Rather than "Zealandia" coming from New Zealand, which was (un)originally named after dutch province!
Fuck me people are stupid...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday February 19 2017, @09:19PM
I think there should be a firm definition of continent. "Continents" are geologically very different from the other potential "land surface", ocean floors. That is to say, the geology at any one spot on the planet is either continent (basically a large chunk of various felsic rock types) or ocean (basalt). Note that continent rock is actually a large chunk of rock floating on ocean basalt. The concept of plate movement comes from the underlying basalt acting as a sort of conveyor belt moving the continent rock on top. When two such conveyor belts move toward each other, the continents eventually collide and merge into one larger continent.
Therefore, we can define one continent as one such contiguous mass of rock that is 1. either entirely on its own "plate" or 2. has merged with a mass of rock that is moving toward it on another plate.
Note that what constitutes a continent will be expected to change over time as tectonic motions change.
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