The Watchers-3/5/13, Chillymanjaro
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found evidence of an ancient micro-continent buried beneath the Indian Ocean which formed in the last 16 millions years. This ancient precambrian continent, named Mauritia, extends more than 1500 km in length from the Seychelles to the island of Mauritius and contains rocks as old as 2,000 million years. According to Professor Nick Kusznir, who led the University of Liverpool’s processing and analysis of satellite gravitational field anomalies to map the Indian Ocean crustal thickness, there are remnants of fragmented continents under the Indian Ocean.
The research team believe that this micro-continent was split off from Madagascar and India between 61 and 83 million years ago as one single land mass rifted apart to form the continents around the today’s Indian Ocean. Much of it was then smothered by thick lava deposits as a result of volcanic activity and submerged beneath the waves. There are five or six other micro-continent fragments under the Indian Ocean and there are more similar features in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
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