Ashwal, Torsvik and co-Authors recently identified remnants from another world right beneath our feet – a now submerged continent billions of years old. Mauritia, once a tiny part of the Rodinia ‘supercontinent’ prior to the formation of the Indian Ocean (Torsvik et al., 2013) is believed to have detached about 60 million years ago as Madagascar and India drifted apart, and is hidden under huge masses of lava.
Continental drift, responsible for Mauritia’s downfall, also gave birth to Mauritius, as geological processes surrounded the paradise island with white sandy beaches and transparent lagoons, protected from the open sea by one of the world’s largest coral reefs.
You can read the article in GeoExpro here.
Reference to research article:
Torsvik, Trond Helge; Amundsen, Hans; Hartz, Ebbe Hvidegård; Corfu, Fernando; Kusznir, Nick; Gaina, Carmen; Dubrovin, Pavel; Steinberger, Bernard; Ashwal, Lewis D. & Jamtveit, Bjørn (2013). A Precambrian microcontinent in the Indian Ocean. Nature Geoscience. ISSN 1752-0894. 6(3), s 223- 227 . doi: 10.1038/ngeo1736