New microcontinent discovered between Greenland and Canada
The formation of microcontinents is always possible, experts say.
It's not a place you can visit, but scientists have discovered a microcontinent between Canada and Greenland, below the water's surface.
A paper detailing the findings is published in Gondwana Research.
While the continent is new to us, it's been around for a while. The tectonic plates between Canada and Greenland began shifting about 118 million years ago, eventually giving way to create the Davis Strait, which connects the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay.
Scientists believe the shifting that occurred some 33 to 61 million years ago created a thick continental crust beneath the Davis Strait, which they now call the Davis Strait proto-microcontinent.
Researchers used gravity data to map the locations and directions of fracture zones and extinct mid-ocean ridges. This helped create a plate tectonic reconstruction of the Labrador Sea, Davis Strait, and Baffin Bay.
The team also used data on crust thickness and seismic reflections in the Davis Strait.
Microcontinent formation "ongoing"
"Rifting and microcontinent formation are absolutely ongoing phenomena," Jordan Phethean, a researcher working on the study, said in a statement.
"With every earthquake, we might be working towards the next microcontinent separation. The aim of our work is to understand their formation well enough to predict that very future evolution."
Dr. Phethean says the research can be applied to other microcontinents to learn more about their origins.
"Better knowledge of how these microcontinents form allows researchers to understand how plate tectonics operates on Earth, with useful implications for the mitigation of plate tectonic hazards and discovering new resources."
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Header image: File photo of the Davis Strait via Canva Pro.
