A bit of science to change the conversation

If you have trouble losing your keys or your phone, don’t feel bad. The earth managed to lose a continent for about 84 million years.

In the middle of all the political pieces, weather changes and Super Bowl ads, you may have missed the news that scientists have found evidence of a long, lost continent called “Mauritia,” according to a USA Today article.

“The continent, which geologists call ‘Mauritia,’ formed part of present-day Madagascar and India,” the article states. “The rest of the continent probably sank beneath the sea 84 million years ago.”

The continent is more specifically located under the island of Mauritius, found in the Indian Ocean.

Sadly, as you have read, we can’t visit the latest installment of the Disney amusement park franchise on Mauritia or eat its native foods, but it is still an exciting find.

You know, unless you don’t like continents or something.

According to the article, Mauritia was found because scientists were studying how the continents came to be through various means, such as by studying minerals left over from possible volcanic explosions.

It is believed that the continent was possibly part of a greater continent, called Gondwana or Gondwanaland, that “broke up to become Antarctica, Africa, Australia and South America.”

Mauritius, according to another article by Time, has a strong gravitational pull, which is what brought scientists to look at the island and its minerals to begin with.

“Earth’s gravity is not completely uniform at all places across the globe, but can be slightly stronger or weaker, depending on the density of the material in the local crust,” the Time article stated.

Essentially, scientists believe the island sank beneath the Indian Ocean because of plate tectonics, which possibly caused the continent “to shatter and sink entirely from view.”

What’s really interesting about the find of a new continent is that scientists not only found evidence of minerals older than those believed to be part of Mauritia, according to the USA Today article. Meaning, we could have had even more continents at some point in the geological history of our world.

So many missed opportunities for McDonalds and Disney World.

I share this information with you to give you a break from the governmental actions and the never ending bad news that seems to happen everyday.

Look up articles about the missing continent, learn something new (if this is new information to you), and maybe break up the repetitive conversation today with your new knowledge.

Cassie Gibbs is a staff writer for The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun-Courier. The opinions of this writer are her own and not the opinion of the paper. She can be reached at (334) 393-2969 or by email at [email protected].