Evidence of a lost continent has been recently discovered underneath the Mauritius Islands, off the coast of South Africa in the Indian Ocean. The University of Witswatersrand in South Africa made the discovery and is looking more in depth to the findings. Professor Lewis Ashwal, lead author of the paper, says there are a number of pieces of "undiscovered continent" of various sizes spread over the Indian Ocean. They believe how the continent island which they named Mauritia came about was that what is now India and Africa, were once connected, however when they were splitting apart they left behind the island of Maritia. "This breakup did not involve a simple splitting of the ancient super-continent of Gondwana," says Ashwal, but "a complex splintering took place with fragments of continental crust of variable sizes left adrift within the evolving Indian Ocean basin." The team made the discovery by analyzing a mineral -- zircon -- found in rocks spewed up by lava during volcanic eruptions. The zicron found in the rocks on the island do not date back past 9 million years, however the zicron they found in some of the rocks they were analyzing dated back past 3 billion years. This and other information lead them to conclude that the island of Mauritia got covered with lava after a volcanic explosion, and that caused the island to be gone forever. I think this is really fascinating because Mauritia was a full continent that is now just gone, leaving us guessing what the island was actually like.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/world/lost-continent-mauritius-trnd/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/03/world/lost-continent-mauritius-trnd/index.html