Mega-plate that disappeared 20 million years ago discovered

Geologists have found the remains of a mega-plate that once formed the foundation of what is now the South China Sea and disappeared 20 million years ago.

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Mega-plate that disappeared 20 million years ago discovered

Because it was located under an ocean known as the Pontus Ocean, scientists named it the "Pontus plate."

According to the findings, the Pontus tectonic plate was a quarter the size of the Pacific Ocean before it disappeared.

Moreover, no one knew until now that such a plate existed.

THEY FOUND THE REMAINS OF A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN PLATE

Suzanna Van De Lagemaat, a PhD candidate at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said, "It is amazing to find the remains of a plate we never knew about."

According to details reported in Independent Türkçe, Van De Lagemaat and her colleagues were actually studying the Pacific plate under the Pacific Ocean.

Tectonic plates are constantly moving toward each other, and oceanic plates can be pushed under continental plates and disappear as a result of a process called subduction.

In some cases, rocks belonging to a lost plate can surface at the foothills of mountains formed by tectonic movements.

The researchers were also trying to find the remains of one of these lost plates, known as the Phoenix plate, while conducting fieldwork in Borneo.

Scientists can estimate where and when rocks were formed by looking at their magnetic properties in the field.

Van De Lagemaat and her team also found something strange when they analyzed the rocks they collected in Borneo. The samples on hand did not match any known tectonic plate.

To solve this mystery, the team used geological data to reconstruct the plate movements between Japan and New Zealand in a computer environment.

The models pointed to a massive tectonic plate whose existence was unknown.

Thus, the team discovered that another plate existed in the region between South China and Borneo 20 million years ago and revealed the existence of the Pontus plate.

The findings, published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Gondwana Research, show that the Pontus plate formed at least 160 million years ago.

It was determined that the rock samples collected in Borneo also date back 135 million years.

According to the data, the plate was once very large but steadily shrank, being pushed under the Australian plate in the south and the Chinese plate in the north.

Ultimately, it disappeared 20 million years ago.

News Source: 12punto