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The enigma of what happened to a recede continent that on the face of it fly 155 million years ago may have finally been solved , after scientists unearth evidence of the landmass and retraced its steps .
It turn out the lost continent , cognise as Argoland , had a messy divorce from western Australia . It decay as architectonic forces stretched the landmass out and repel it aside from the rest of the continent , before scattering it across Southeast Asia , a unexampled work has found .
Researchers may have finally solved the mystery of what happened to the lost continent Argoland.
Researchers have long known that a landmass rifted from Australia 155 million years ago , thanks to clues left in the geology of a deep ocean basin known as the Argo Abyssal Plain off the area ’s northwest seacoast .
But unlike India , which broke off the ancient supercontinentGondwana120 million long time ago and still form an intact landmass today , Argoland splintered into fragments . And until now , scientist were left scratching their heads as to where those continental sherd ended up .
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A partial reconstruction of Argoland’s drift from 215 million years ago when its break-up accelerated until today.
" We knew it had to be somewhere northwards of Australia , so we expect to determine it in Southeast Asia , " atomic number 82 study authorEldert Advokaat , a researcher in the section of Earth skill at Utrecht University in the Netherlands , told Live Science .
In the young study , bring out online Oct. 19 in the journalGondwana Research , Advokaat and his colleagues reconstructed the breakaway continent ’s journey . The research worker found fragment of ancient land scattered around Indonesia and Myanmar , but when they seek to reconstruct Argoland out of these fragments , " nothing set , " he said .
The squad then sour backward , gathering evidence in Southeast Asia to retrace Argoland ’s northward journey . Amid the disperse fragments of ancient land , they discovered the leftover of little oceans go out to or so 200 million years ago . These ocean belike organise as architectonic forces stretch and fissured Argoland prior to the 3,100 - nautical mile - long ( 5,000 klick ) land mass break off , Advokaat articulate .
" That process goes on for 50 to 60 million year and around 155 million years ago , that whole collage of these thread Continent and intervening ocean start drifting over to Southeast Asia , " he tell . " We did n’t lose a continent ; it was just already a very extended and disunited ensemble . "
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To reflect this , Advokaat and his colleagues referred to Argoland as an " Argopelago . " Their reconstruction of the continent ’s story may shed light on the region ’s past climate , which would have cooled as oceans form between the smidge of Argoland , Advokaat say .
As fragments of Argoland collided with landmasses in Southeast Asia , they also shaped the richbiodiversitywe see today . This could help explain the uneven dispersion of species along aninvisible barrier that runs through Indonesia , Advokaat added .
Overall , piecing together Argoland is " a jumping-off point for unexampled research , " he said .
