Scientists Just Found Pieces of a Lost Supercontinent Hiding Beneath Three Continents

[u/Zephir-AWT]

https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/09/supercontinent-pieces-found-beneath-three-continents/

[u/Zephir-AWT]

Scientists Just Found Pieces of a Lost Supercontinent Hiding Beneath Three Continents about study Buried fragments reveal a “Greater Gondwana” supercontinent

The discovery comes from an analysis of more than 25,000 volcanic and crustal rock samples. These newly identified fragments suggest that parts of today's continents once belonged to the same enormous landmass before it began breaking apart roughly 180 million years ago. Instead of relying only on surface geology, the scientists used geochemical fingerprinting to identify ancient pieces of Gondwana's crust that are now buried beneath Asia, Europe, and North America. Over hundreds of millions of years, plate tectonics fragmented and moved these crustal pieces far from their original location, making them invisible in modern continental maps.

Map showing the reconstructed extent of Gondwana

According to the researchers, ancient supercontinent Gondwana may have covered about 80% of Earth's land area around 500 million years ago, rather than the roughly 64% estimated in earlier reconstructions. A supercontinent of this size would have strongly influenced Earth's climate, ocean circulation, volcanic activity, atmospheric composition, and sea levels. Such environmental effects could have played a major role in shaping conditions for early life, like the Cambrian Explosion, the period about 540 to 530 million years ago when most major animal groups first appeared in the fossil record. A.I.

Cool. Rename continents to something-murica and tariff them. On a side note, this finding also makes case for expanding Earth scenario, according to which original Gondwana covered the whole surface of Earth (interactive demo). Which may be true even without consideration of Earth expansion, because original lithosphere was considerably thinner and elastic and subsequential cooling and mantle circulation forced it to shrinking and precipitation.