A continent buried beneath Europe for 140 million years suddenly reappears

The continent called Greater Adria resurfaces in the scientific community, bringing with it a new way of understanding the Earth's movements.

It was nearly 240 million years ago: Greater Adria had just come into existence. Although it was separated from the African continent by an ocean, this piece of land was part of the African tectonic plate. Between 100 and 120 million years later, the continent collided with southern Europe and gradually began to descend beneath it, according to the site L’Energeek. A collision that has profoundly impacted the configuration of today's landscapes. The remnants of this "forgotten" continent are notably the origin of mountain ranges such as the Apennines and the Alps.

10 years of research

The rediscovery of Greater Adria is owed to the work of a team of scientists, led by Douwe van Hinsbergen from Utrecht University. These researchers spent nearly 10 years collecting and analysing rocks from the lost continent to trace its history. As highlighted by L’Energeek, it was the use of advanced software capable of tracking the movement of the plates over millions of years that allowed the team to create precise maps of the territory, buried beneath southern Europe for millions of years.

Another vision of global tectonics

Published in the journal Gondwana Research, the results of their analyses are astonishing. Thanks to their seismic data, the researchers were able to accurately reconstruct the tectonic evolution. Furthermore, they were able to study the orientation of tiny magnetic minerals, which were shaped by ancient bacteria. All these elements help to better understand the conditions of rock formation and to approach differently the geological forces that shape the Earth (movements of tectonic plates, formation of mountain ranges, disappearance of pieces of land...).

(MH with Raphaël Liset - Source - L’Energeek - Illustration: ©Unsplash)