Zealandia, is recently discovered as the 8th continent. It is world’s smallest, thinnest, newest and youngest continent.
Abel Tasman, an experienced Dutch sailor with a predilection for harsh justice, was certain that a massive continent existed in the southern hemisphere and was resolved to find it in 1642. He accepted that he had found the extraordinary southern landmass, clearly but it was clearly not the commercial nirvana he had visualized and afterward he didn’t return.
After all, Tasman was correct: there existed an unknown continent. In 2017, a group of geologists made headlines when they announced the discovery of Zealandia, or Te Riu-a-Mui, in Mori. According to the broadcaster, it is a massive continent of 1.89 million square miles (4.9 million square kilometers), or six times the size of Madagascar. According to a BBC story, the world’s encyclopedias, maps, and search engines had long been convinced that there were only seven continents, but the team confidently notified the globe that this was incorrect.
“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.” Andy Tulloch, a geologist at the New Zealand Crown Research Institute GNS Science, who was important for the group that found Zealandia, said: “This is an illustration of how something glaring can require a significant stretch of time to uncover.”
This is just the beginning, and the continent remains as enigmatic as ever, guarded beneath 6,560 feet (2 kilometers) of water. According to the study, geologists will continue to be fascinated by the eighth continent, as it is unclear how Zealandia managed to stay together and not disintegrate into little micro-continents despite its thinness.
