Dutch researchers from Utrecht University announced the discovery of Argoland, a land mass approximately 5 thousand kilometers wide and more than 155 million years old. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Gondwana Survey (GR).
Scientists have found that parts of Argoland are scattered throughout the Indian Ocean, and some end in Southeast Asia.
Argoland is believed to have separated from Australia at the end of the Jurassic period, when brachiosaurs and stegosaurs roamed the Earth. Over thousands of years it slowly drifted towards Southeast Asia and eventually disappeared. The existence of the continent is evidenced by the Argo Abyssal Plain left behind, but until recently no one was able to explore the landmass itself.
“Finding Argoland was not easy. We spent seven years putting this puzzle together,” said Elder Advocaat, one of the study’s authors.
Parts of the continent are hidden beneath lush forests in large parts of Indonesia and Myanmar, scientists said.
Using the ruins, geologists were able to carefully map the gradual destruction of Argoland. They concluded that at the end of the Triassic period the continent broke into an archipelago, which was then absorbed by the ocean.
According to researchers, it appears to have split into an archipelago in the Late Triassic, with part of it later sinking into the sea. Similar processes occurred on other lost continents, including Zealandia, which sank near Australia, and the Greater Adria continent, which once existed in the Mediterranean.
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