Abel Tasman, a seasoned Dutch sailor with a penchant for stern punishment, was convinced that a vast continent existed in the southern hemisphere and set out in 1642 to discover it.
He acknowledged that he had discovered the magnificent southern landmass, but it was not the commercial paradise he had imagined, and he did not return.
After all, according to the BBC, Tasman was correct: there was an unexplored continent.
When a group of geologists announced the discovery of Zealandia, or Te Riu-a-Mui, in Mori in 2017, they made headlines. It is a gigantic continent, measuring 1.89 million square miles (4.9 million square kilometers), or six times the size of Madagascar, according to the broadcaster.
According to a BBC report, encyclopedias, maps, and search engines around the world have long believed there were just seven continents, but the team firmly informed the world that this was erroneous.
“After all, there are eight of them, and the newest one is the world’s smallest, thinnest, and youngest. The catch is that 94 percent of it is underwater, with only a few islands, such as New Zealand, protruding from the depths. It had been hiding in plain sight the entire time.” according to the BBC.
“This is an indication of how something obvious can take a large amount of time to unearth,” said Andy Tulloch, a geologist at the New Zealand Crown Research Institute GNS Science who was instrumental in the discovery of Zealandia.
According to the BBC, this is only the beginning, and the continent remains as intriguing as ever, shielded beneath 6,560 feet (2 kilometres) of water.
Geologists will continue to be interested with Zealandia, according to the study, because it is unclear how it managed to stay together and not disintegrate into small micro-continents despite its thinness.
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