Produced by: Manoj Kumar
We grew up naming seven continents—but groundbreaking research says we’ve got it wrong all along.
Dr. Jordan Phethean, a geologist at the University of Derby, says Europe and North America may still be geologically linked.
Once thought to be volcanic leftovers, Iceland may actually be part of a hidden continental mass.
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The Greenland-Iceland-Faroes Ridge might be the missing bridge between two supposedly separate continents.
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Phethean’s team coined “Rifted Oceanic Magmatic Plateau” to describe this massive hidden structure beneath the ocean.
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Describing it as geology’s Atlantis, Phethean says they’ve uncovered submerged fragments of lost continental crust.
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Detailed analysis shows Iceland contains crust from both European and North American tectonic plates.
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Surprisingly, Africa’s Afar region has near-identical features to Iceland, hinting at a shared volcanic origin.
If this theory holds, it could rewrite Earth’s continental map and change how we search for natural resources.