Researchers at the University have discovered Utrecht, in the Netherlands, it was a lost continent, Africa broke off and stuck in Europe to create mountain ranges that the margin in 30 different countries from Spain to Iran. “What we have discussed is the complex geological history of the Mediterranean region”, Utrecht Professor Douwe van Hinsbergen, the researcher in charge of the project, told TIME. Researchers had known for decades that a continent of Europe and the Middle East the mountains together. “What continent might look like, but it was previously estimated with the cartoons rather schematic,” says van Hinsbergen in an e-mail. created with the help of modern software, a clearer picture of this hidden continent. “What we have done is to use very elegant and software useful and free disk reconstruction, genannte way GPlates’systematisch piece together what this continent seemed … how was … and how [it] has broken away from Africa, “said van Hinsbergen writes. The project was done initially planned for three years, but he found under the end 10 to more than 200 million years shifting continental plates causes a continent – which the researchers called for more Adria – to get out of North Africa . This leads to a deep ocean, the remains of which are the Ionian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean between Libya and Turkey. If you look at a modern map of Africa, van Hinsbergen points, you can have a “bite” to see where the continent has broken from Tunisia to Israel. Bigger Adria was then thrust into southern Europe, mountains create the region is known today as the Apennines of Italy, the Dolomites Italy, the Balkans Mountains from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro , Northern Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania, has also created Greece and much of Turkey. “Suppose you have a sweater with sleeves thick arms,” he explains. “And you try to push his arm under the table … what you see is the deformation sleeves while the arm goes down. The sleeve is Apenninen. The sleeve is Greece. The sleeve is Turkey.” The last remnants of intact continent under the Adriatic. He adds that while most of Adria was “by far” the largest continent, there were smaller continents, which broke away from Africa and have been consumed by Europe. How did the researchers on this? Using GPlates software analyzed the data, such as van Hinsbergen put, “the movements between the rock” betrayed units put together the history of the United Adriatic like a puzzle. They looked magnetic stripe on the seabed, error movements stored and magnetic fields in the same rocks. All of their data were collected from published literature – some 1,500 papers of scientists in 30 countries – some of which van Hinsbergen and his co-authors have contributed. The full methodology appear in their paper published. “The reason why we gave this [continent] is a new name this mountain belts running from Spain to Iran, covering about 30 different countries … and almost every country has its own name and their own assumptions for what [they] looked like in the past, “says van Hinsbergen. to declare his choice of name, van Hinsbergen “writes nomenclature I used from the Himalayas: the Himalayan rocks were derived from continental crust, but then the Indian plate. The area from which these rocks as, United India ‘in the literature, so I added that the exported and called the Adriatic. “he explains that most of the building materials Van Hinsbergen which are widely used in Italy, Greece and Turkey are from the Adria created by mountains. Marble, for example, rock comes from coal buried that the heat and the pressure they are subjected. “Make the marbles that were used by the Romans to their temple, is a relic of the Great Adriatic,” he explains. When the time asked him if there is something that readers should know about his project, he added: “It ‘s very funny.” Photo copyright for universal AGF Group via Getty images
Researchers discover what became of a lost continent, now hidden under the Adriatic
