A New Microcontinent Beneath Greenland Stuns Scientists
Researchers have recently located a primitive microcontinent between Greenland and Canada. The experts detected the microcontinent below the surface of the Davis Strait, Popular Mechanics reported. The scientists hope that this discovery will give them more of an idea regarding the formation of microcontinents. The team's findings about the discovery have been published in Gondwana Research.
The Davis Strait which separates Greenland and Canada is known to have a thick seafloor, Live Science reported. Experts believe that this thick seafloor is because it contains a portion of a continent landmass that did not pull away when Greenland and Canada rifted apart. The incomplete rifting process has been discussed in detail within the study.
The chunk of continental crust researchers have found within the Davis Strait, has been identified as a microcontinent by them, Live Science reported. Microcontinents are pieces of crust that have separated away from the main continents. They can be found submerged within the ocean or sometimes can form their own islands.
In the case of Davis Strait, the crust did not completely break apart, Live Science reported. It measures 12 to 15 miles in thickness and is surrounded by a thinned-out continental crust that is about 9 to 10.5 miles in thickness, on both sides. The incomplete separation is the reason the structure is called primitive or proto microcontinent.
The researchers claim in the study that there is an ancient fault in the area, which could have acted like a guard rail back when the rifting process between Greenland and Canada began, Live Science reported. The feature essentially stopped the two landmasses from fully separating.
33 million years ago, Greenland stopped shifting away from North America and placed itself on the North American tectonic plate, Live Science reported. The failed rift zone has been routinely analyzed by researchers to understand the function of tectonic plates.
"If we can understand why the plates are moving in the directions that they are, it allows us to understand what’s controlling plate tectonics," study co-author Jordan Phethean, a geophysicist at Derby University in the U.K. shared.
Phethean believes that Davis Strait is a great area to study microcontinents because of its various features, Popular Mechanics reported. "The well-defined changes in plate motion that occur in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay, which have relatively limited external complications affecting them, make this area an ideal natural laboratory for studying microcontinent formation," he explained. Through their work, the researchers want to gather enough data to accurately predict the future changes in the landform.