New Zealand actually tip of world's youngest continent: scientists

Most people think of New Zealand as a few small islands at the bottom of the world, but researchers revealed Friday that is actually part of a large continent that is 94-percent under the sea.

A 20-year study by scientists from New Zealand, New Caledonia and Australia concluded that 4.9 million square kilometers of the southwest Pacific Ocean was underlain by a submerged continent.

Geoscientists had dubbed the continent Zealandia, said study lead author Dr Nick Mortimer, of the government's Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS Science).

"Being more than 1 million square kilometers in area, and bounded by well-defined geologic and geographic limits, Zealandia is, by our definition, large enough to be termed a continent," Mortimer said in a statement.

"As well as being the seventh largest geological continent, Zealandia is the youngest, thinnest and most submerged."

Zealandia covered an area of 4.9 million square kilometers and had a continental crust thickness between 10 and 30 km, increasing to more than 40 km under parts of the South Island.

It was six times bigger than Madagascar, and about the same area as greater India.

"Zealandia provides a fresh context in which to investigate processes of continental rifting, thinning and breakup," said Mortimer.

Zealandia illustrated that the large and obvious in natural science could be overlooked, he said. Endit