Earth has six continents not seven, radical new study claims

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after all.

From a young age, we're taught that the world is made up of seven continents – Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America – but new research is challenging this traditional view, suggesting that it might actually be different.

It's argued that we actually only have six continents.

This ripper of a claim has come about due to a thorough investigation into the geological processes behind the break-up of Europe and North America, and how these landmasses have changed over time.

That his team's research shows "the North America and Eurasian tectonic plates haven't split as is believed to have happened 52 million years ago."

Instead, he said, these plates are still expanding and splitting, and so aren't yet fully distinct from one another.

In other words, North America and Europe could be seen as a single big landmass, rather than two separate ones.

The study takes a close look at the volcanic island of Iceland, which was once believed to have formed around 60 million years ago due to the mid-Atlantic ridge's activity

notes.

G'day, by taking a close look at tectonic movements all across the African continent, Phethean and his mates have questioned this theory and come up with a real game-changer of an idea.

They claim that Iceland, along with the Greenland Iceland Faroes Ridge (GIFR), is made up of bits from both the European and North American tectonic plates.

G'day, people reckon it seems these regions aren't isolated landmasses like we thought: they're actually connected parts of a bigger continental landscape.

The scientists have even come up with the term “Rifted Oceanic Magmatic Plateau” (ROMP) to describe this new geological feature, which could have extremely important implications for how we see the formation and breaking off of Earth's continents.

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He reckons it's because he and his mates have come across "gobbets of a lost continent buried beneath the ocean and kilometres of thin lava flows."

They've also found quite a few similarities between Iceland and Africa's volcanic Afar region.

And if their study holds up, it would mean that the European and North American tectonic plates are still moving apart, so they're still connected.

Phethean admits that his team's discoveries will likely spark some controversy, but he's confident they're backed by thorough investigation.

"G'day, it's a bit of a stormer, but I reckon it's legitimate to suggest that the Greater Ireland Fragment Rift's got a fair chunk of continental crust inside it and that the European and North American tectonic plates might still be stuck together, ya know?" he said, but made sure to stress that his research backs up these ideas.

Fair dinkum, the research is still at the talking stages, and the team's plan is to do more experiments on Iceland's volcanic rocks to get some solid proof that the ancient continent once existed.

They're using computer simulations and plate tectonic models to get a better idea of how the ROMP is formed.

situated between Greenland and Canada.

This rugged patch of land is roughly the same size as England and lies below the Davis Strait, near Baffin Island.

Phethean noted that "rifting and microcontinent formation are ongoing phenomena" which help scientists to better understand how the continents and plate tectonics behave.

This information can help experts forecast what our planet might resemble in centuries to come and help pinpoint where valuable resources might be discovered.

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