It’s not quite Atlantis!
But a new model of the early development of continental crusts suggests that Earth really did once have lost continents which were dismantled by radioactivity over time.
What are lost continents?
Lost Lands are islands or continents believed by some to have existed in ancient times, but to have since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological phenomena.
The idea behind their disappearances comes from comparing the age and radioactivity of rocks across the planet.
Precambrian Research and Lithos and other research studies suggest that Earth’s continental crust was much thicker, much earlier than current models imply.
This implies that continents could have existed as far back as 4 billion years ago before disappearing and leaving little to no traces.
Those theories are based on an inverse relationship between the age of rocks and their radioactivity in more than 76,000 rock samples from around the world.
Inverse correlation between age of rock and radioactivity
Hasterok argues the relationship exists because the most radioactive early crust has disappeared.
Rocks that are fairly radioactive produce heat. In the early days of Earth, when radioactive isotopes were more abundant, this heat was four times greater.
The most radioactive rocks melted, destroying some degree of the knowledge of the old one and leaving us the impression there was no crustal material there before.
So where a large part of a continent was highly radioactive, the rocks became weaker and tectonic processes could pull them apart more easily.”
And so, entire proto-continents may have been destroyed, leaving no trace at all. Like those ones:
So according to the studies above, the early Earth had more and thicker continental crust than we give it credit now.
There are also hints that heat from the more radioactive pockets melts glaciers from below in Antarctica. So it’s not just volcanic activity, ocean erosion, but also radioactive decay that melts glaciers from below.
List of lost continents
The most famous lost continent is Atlantis, which is ultimately derived from ancient Greek geographic speculation and possibly memories of the Minoan eruption of the Thera volcano.
The name of hypothetical vanished continent Mu originated from the first attempted translation of the Madrid Codex, one of only four remaining Maya codices.
Zealandia is now 94% submerged under the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the areas of New Zealand and New Caledonia (not shown on the map).
Lemuria and Kumari Kandam.
Yes, lost continents and their mysteries are about to be rediscovered! And it will shatter geology as we know it now! Similar strange geological phenomena on Strange Sounds and Steve Quayle. [Precambrian Research, Lithos, IFLS]
