Scientists discover unique continent lost 155 million years ago

After 155 million years, the mystery of the landmass that broke away from modern Western Australia and drifted in the ocean has finally been solved by scientists. Geologists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands have identified the location of the Down Under — deep beneath the Earth’s surface.

The continent of Argoland, which was once part of the supercontinent Gondwana, initially drifted to the northwest, where, according to researchers, several Southeast Asian islands exist today. Since then, it has split into several fragments, and despite the scant evidence of Argoland’s existence, geologists are searching for it under the jungles of Indonesia and Myanmar.

To learn more about Argoland, scientists have compared it to another prehistoric continent, Great Hadria, which was rediscovered in 2019. Hadria also broke up into numerous fragments that were divided between ocean basins before becoming a single tectonic plate. Centuries ago, it was integrated into the Earth’s mantle, and the only evidence of its existence was the upper layer that formed the mountains in southern Europe.

It took researchers seven years to draw conclusive conclusions about the existence of Argoland. During this time, scientists studied the structure of several islands, including Sumatra, the Andaman Islands, Borneo, Sulawesi, and Timor.

«The situation in Southeast Asia is very different from Africa and South America, where the continent split into two parts. Argoland has split into many different fragments. This prevents us from seeing the path of the continent,» said researcher Eldert Advocaat.

Currently, the rocky fragments of Argoland are at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and are also integrated into small islands near Indonesia and Myanmar.

In late September, researchers from the University of Bristol predicted that the formation of the next supercontinent could wipe out all mammals. In the study, scientists used supercomputer modeling of climate and continental change. The analysis showed that extreme climatic events will sharply increase when the continents merge into one hot, dry and practically uninhabitable supercontinent in 250 million years.