What Do You Know About Zealandia? 10 Important Points About The Lost Continent Of The World

After 375 years, Zealandia is identified as the eighth continent in the world. It has been called a lost continent, a submerged continent, a continental fragment, and a microcontinent. A group of geologists from New Zealand, New Caledonia, Australia, the United States, Denmark, and Tasmania have now created a new geological map by combining technologies for geophysical mapping with methods for collecting rock samples from the sea. At 1.89 million square miles (4.9 million square kilometres), this recently discovered continent is roughly six times larger than Madagascar. 

A continent is a vast area of thick continental crust made up of metamorphic rocks developed in tectonically active regions, sediments deposited by erosion on the land surface, and granite or other comparable igneous rocks that comprise the continental basis. All of those criteria apply to Zealandia, however, due to its remote location, nothing is known about its specific geology.

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10 Important Points About Zealandia

1. Zealandia, an almost totally submerged chunk of continental crust that split off from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago, is located in Oceania. It has been referred to as a submerged continent, a continental fragment, and a microcontinent. 
2. Bruce Luyendyk came up with the term and the idea for Zealandia in 1995, and satellite images indicate that it is almost as big as Australia. It is the Latin name for New Zealand, coined in the middle of the 1990s. 
3. Zealandia is significantly larger than any features referred to as microcontinents and continental fragments, with a total area of roughly 4,900,000 km2 (1,900,000 sq mi). And around 94% of the continent is still underwater.
4. The Ontong Java Plateau, the largest interoceanic large igneous province (LIP) in the world, is roughly 1,900,000 km2 (730,000 sq mi) in size. Greenland, the largest island in the world, is 2,166,086 km2 (836,330 sq mi) larger than Zealandia. 
5. The Zealandia continent consists mostly of two ridges that are nearly parallel to one other and are divided by a failed rift, which has stopped and turned into a filled graben. A few rocky islands rise above sea level, and the ridges climb to heights of 1,000–1,500 m (3,300–4,900 ft) above the ocean's surface. The ridges are made of continental rock, although they are not as high as typical continents since their crust is much thinner than usual, only 20 km (12 mi) thick.
6. The younger Zealandia rocks show evidence of early Gondwana formations from 500 to 700 million years ago, Rodinia formations from about a billion years ago, and sources from an expanded Ur continent between 3.5 and 2 billion years ago.
7. The entire land area of Zealandia is 286,660.25 km2 (110,680.14 sq mi), including inland water bodies. With 267,988 km2 (103,471 sq mi), or 93.49 per cent of this total, New Zealand makes up the vast bulk of it. This includes the mainland (North Island and South Island), neighbouring islands, and the majority of offshore islands. 
8. Around 18,576 km2 (7,172 sq mi) or 6.48 per cent of the total area of the world is made up of New Caledonia and the islands that surround it. The remaining area is made up of several Australian territories, such as Norfolk Island and the Cato, Elizabeth, and Middleton reefs in the Coral Sea Islands Territory, which together cover 5.25 km2 (2.03 sq mi) and 56 km2 (22 sq mi) respectively.
9. The overall human population of Zealandia is expected to reach 5.4 million as of 2022. With 1.7 million residents, Auckland is the continent's largest metropolis and home to about one-third of all residents. 
10. The New Zealand Maui gas field, located close to Taranaki, is the largest known gas field in Zealandia and supports significant inshore fisheries. In the Great South Basin, permits for oil exploration were given in 2007. Iron sands, volcanic giant sulfides, and ferromanganese nodule deposits are among the offshore mineral resources.

In conclusion, New Zealand and New Caledonia are part of Zealandia, also known as Te Riu-a-Mui, a vast submerged continental mass in the southwest Pacific Ocean. With a land area of just 4.9 million square kilometres, it is regarded as the smallest continent in the world. Geographical and geological aspects make Zealandia unique. It's a topic of scientific interest since it sheds light on how continental rifting and plate tectonics work. 

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