Lost Continent in Indian Ocean Discovered Beneath Mauritius?

Evidence of a lost continent in the Indian Ocean has been discovered beneath Mauritius, an island nation about 1,200 miles off Africa's southeast coast.

Geologists believe the continent sank below the Indian Ocean 84 million years ago, according to USA Today's reporting on their study. They said Madagascar was once part of the ancient continent before breaking off from it.

The ancient continent, which scientist are calling Mauritias, was part of the super continent Gondwana some 200 million years ago before breaking up, separating Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica, said researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

"We are studying the break-up process of the continents, in order to understand the geological history of the planet," said Witwatersrand geologist Lewis Ashwal.

Ashwal and fellow researchers found the remnants of minerals on Mauritius that they believe is too old to belong on the island. Ashwal said they believe the Archaean zircons in Miocene oceanic hotspot rocks they found was part of an ancient continental crust.

"Earth is made up of two parts – continents, which are old, and oceans, which are 'young,'" Ashwal said. "On the continents you find rocks that are over four billion years old, but you find nothing like that in the oceans, as this is where new rocks are formed."

"Mauritius is an island, and there is no rock older than nine million years old on the island. However, by studying the rocks on the island, we have found zircons that are as old as three billion years."

Details of the study were published in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature Communications.

New Scientist magazine said evidence also exists that other volcanic Indian Ocean islands were part of the sunken continent, including the Cargados Carajos, Laccadive, and Chagos islands.

"It's only now as we explore more of the deep oceans that we're finding all these bits of ancient continents around the place," said Alan Collins at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

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