A protracted-forgotten continent dubbed Balkanatolia could have been found by scientists.
In a examine printed within the journal Earth-Science Opinions, a group of scientists from France, the USA and Turkey stated they'd discovered proof for a beforehand unknown continent that when separated Europe from Asia.
Earth is made up of a sequence of tectonic plates that transfer round, shifting the planet's land lots over enormous time scales. Round 250 million years in the past, all of the continents had been joined beneath one supercontinent often known as Pangaea. This started to separate round 200 million years in the past, resulting in the event of Gondwana and Laurasia.
Throughout the Jurassic interval, it cut up much more, with the continents that exist right now beginning to emerge. In the beginning of the Cretaceous interval, 65 million years in the past, the landmasses began to float aside—though North America and Asia had been nonetheless comparatively shut, as had been Antarctica and Australia.
The newly found continent was wedged between Africa, Asia and Europe and existed round 50 million years in the past. The title is a conjunction of the 2 present-day areas that made up the traditional landmass—the Balkans, in south jap Europe, and Anatolia in Turkey.
The paper examined a pivotal mass extinction occasion in Earth's historical past often known as the Grande Coupure or "nice break." This occasion noticed giant numbers of marine life and mammals throughout the Earth—together with what's now Europe—go extinct round 34 million years in the past, between two eras known as the Eocene and Oligocene.
Animals misplaced from Europe had been changed by others from Asia and past. Nevertheless, fossil proof suggests they'd arrived in Europe earlier than the mass extinction. How they'd managed to get there was not recognized.
Geologists and paleontologists discovered jaw fragments of a Brontotheres—an animal like a modern-day rhinoceros that died out on the finish of the Eocene epoch. It was dated between 38 and 35 million years in the past and was the earliest recognized fossil of the animal present in Anatolia.
The Balkanatolia land bridge, the scientists say, related the Asia, Africa and Europe for hundreds of thousands of years and allowed animals emigrate between the continents for hundreds of thousands of years.
Balkanatolia existed 50 million years in the past and was colonised by Asian mammals 40 million years in the past, lengthy earlier than the Grande Coupure, researchers stated. Why animals from this southern continent migrated there's not recognized, though it's thought to narrate to geographical modifications.
It's thought Balkanatolia grew to become related to the European landmass on the finish of the Eocene period, round 34 million years in the past. This was when the Late Cenozoic Ice Age started, spreading glaciers internationally—together with those who nonetheless blanket Antarctica.
Researchers consider that glaciers related Balkanatolia to Europe and gave rise to the Grande Coupure.
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