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Zealandia

Not to be confused with Zeelandia (disambiguation).
For other uses, see Zealandia (disambiguation).

Topography of Zealandia, outlined in pink. The linear ridges running north-northeast (Colville to the west and Kermadec to the east, separated by the Havre Trough and Lau Basin) and southwest (the Resolution Ridge System) away from New Zealand are not considered part of Zealandia, nor are Australia (left), Vanuatu, or Fiji (top centre).[1]

Zealandia (pronounced /ziːˈlændiə/), also known as Te Riu-a-Māui (Māori)[2] or Tasmantis (from Tasman Sea),[3][4] is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust in Oceania that subsided after breaking away from Gondwana 83–79 million years ago.[5] It has been described variously as a submerged continent, continental fragment, and microcontinent.[6] The name and concept for Zealandia was proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995,[7] and satellite imagery shows it to be almost the size of Australia.[8] A 2021 study suggests Zealandia is over a billion years old, about twice as old as geologists previously thought.[9][10]

By approximately 23 million years ago, the landmass may have been completely submerged.[11][12] Today, most of the landmass (94%) remains submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean.[13] New Zealand is the largest part of Zealandia that is above sea level, followed by New Caledonia.

Mapping of Zealandia concluded in 2023.[14] With a total area of approximately 4,900,000 km2 (1,900,000 sq mi),[6] Zealandia is substantially larger than any features termed microcontinents and continental fragments. If classified as a microcontinent, Zealandia would be the world's largest microcontinent. Its area is six times the area of the next-largest microcontinent, Madagascar,[6] and more than half the area of the Australian continent. Zealandia is more than twice the size of the largest intraoceanic large igneous province (LIP) in the world, the Ontong Java Plateau (approximately 1,900,000 km2 or 730,000 sq mi), and the world's largest island, Greenland (2,166,086 km2 or 836,330 sq mi). Zealandia is also substantially larger than the Arabian Peninsula (3,237,500 km2 or 1,250,000 sq mi), the world's largest peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent (4,300,000 km2 or 1,700,000 sq mi). Due to these and other geological considerations, such as crustal thickness and density,[15][16] some geologists from New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Australia have concluded that Zealandia fulfills all the requirements to be considered a continent rather than a microcontinent or continental fragment.[6] Geologist Nick Mortimer commented that if it were not for the ocean level, it would have been recognised as such long ago.[17]

Zealandia supports substantial inshore fisheries and contains gas fields, of which the largest known is the New Zealand Maui gas field, near Taranaki. Permits for oil exploration in the Great South Basin were issued in 2007.[18] Offshore mineral resources include ironsands, volcanic massive sulfides and ferromanganese nodule deposits.[19]

  1. ^ "Figure 8.1: New Zealand in relation to the Indo-Australian and Pacific Plates". The State of New Zealand's Environment 1997. 1997. Archived from the original on 18 January 2005. Retrieved 20 April 2007.
  2. ^ "The origin and meaning of the name Te Riu-a-Māui/Zealandia". www.gns.cri.nz. GNS Science. 2 May 2019. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
  3. ^ Flannery, Tim (2002). The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People. Grove Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-8021-3943-6. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  4. ^ Danver, Steven L. (22 December 2010). Popular Controversies in World History: Investigating History's Intriguing Questions. ABC-CLIO. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-59884-078-0. Archived from the original on 5 August 2016. Zealandia or Tasmantis, with its 3.5 million square km territory being larger than Greenland, ...
  5. ^ Gurnis, M., Hall, C.E., and Lavier, L.L., 2004, Evolving force balance during incipient subduction: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, v. 5, Q07001, https://doi.org/10.01029/02003GC000681
  6. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference mortimer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Luyendyk, Bruce P. (April 1995). "Hypothesis for Cretaceous rifting of east Gondwana caused by subducted slab capture". Geology. 23 (4): 373–376. Bibcode:1995Geo....23..373L. doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1995)023<0373:HFCROE>2.3.CO;2.
  8. ^ Gorvett, Zaria (8 February 2021). "The missing continent it took 375 years to find". BBC. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  9. ^ Turnbull, R.E.; Schwartz, J.J.; Fiorentini, M.L.; Jongens, R.; Evans, N.J.; Ludwig, T.; McDonald, B.J.; Klepeis, K.A. (1 August 2021). "A hidden Rodinian lithospheric keel beneath Zealandia, Earth's newly recognized continent". Geology. 49 (8): 1009–1014. Bibcode:2021Geo....49.1009T. doi:10.1130/G48711.1. ISSN 0091-7613.
  10. ^ Aylin Woodward (14 August 2021). "A fragment of a mysterious 8th continent is hiding under New Zealand - and it's twice as old as scientists thought". Business Insider.
  11. ^ "Searching for the lost continent of Zealandia". The Dominion Post. 29 September 2007. Retrieved 9 October 2007. We cannot categorically say that there has always been land here. The geological evidence at present is too weak, so we are logically forced to consider the possibility that the whole of Zealandia may have sunk.
  12. ^ Campbell, Hamish; Gerard Hutching (2007). In Search of Ancient New Zealand. North Shore, New Zealand: Penguin Books. pp. 166–167. ISBN 978-0-14-302088-2.
  13. ^ Wood, Ray; Stagpoole, Vaughan; Wright, Ian; Davy, Bryan; Barnes, Phil (2003). New Zealand's Continental Shelf and UNCLOS Article 76 (PDF). Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited. Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences series 56. Wellington, New Zealand: National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. p. 16. NIWA technical report 123. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 February 2007. Retrieved 22 February 2007. The continuous rifted basement structure, thickness of the crust, and lack of seafloor spreading anomalies are evidence of prolongation of the New Zealand land mass to Gilbert Seamount.
  14. ^ Newcomb, Tim. "Earth's Hidden Eighth Continent Is No Longer Lost". Science > Our Planet. Popular Mechanics. ISSN 0032-4558.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference MortimerCampbell2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ "Zealandia: Is there an eighth continent under New Zealand?". BBC News. 17 February 2017. Archived from the original on 28 March 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  17. ^ Sumner, Thomas (13 March 2017). "Is Zealandia a continent?". Science News for Students. Society for Science and the Public. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
  18. ^ "Great South Basin – Questions and Answers". 11 July 2007. Archived from the original on 14 October 2008. Retrieved 18 April 2008.
  19. ^ "New survey published on NZ mineral deposits". 30 May 2007. Archived from the original on 16 October 2008. Retrieved 18 April 2008.

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