Just like people, continents break up and drift apart. And just like messy human relationships, sometimes an ex that you thought you had forgotten resurfaces unexpectedly. Happily though, today’s case does not involve any mean texts or tweets, but the remains of an ancient supercontinent, the discovery of which sheds light on the tumultuous and mysterious beginnings of this planet.
The ancient remains in question belong to Mauritia, which was one of the pieces that splintered from the massive supercontinent Gondwana to form a sandwich with India and Madagascar. We know that this ancient threesome eventually separated with India and Madagascar going their separate ways but whatever happened to Mauritia?
For the clues to its whereabouts, one needs to look at rocks found on the present-day island of Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa. But we’re not just talking about any rocks, we’re looking at those containing zircon. This mineral is significant because it occurs mainly in granites from the continents and predates the formation of young volcanic islands such as Mauritius. In other words, zircon should not be found here at all – it’s old and the island is young. Lead author Lewis Ashwal, a geologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa explains why:
“Mauritius is an island, and there is no rock older than nine million years old on the island. However, by studying the rocks on the island, we have found zircons that are as old as three billion years.”
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