New Microcontinent Discovered Off West Greenland

July 12, 2024

Scientists have recently found a hidden microcontinent in the Davis Strait, west of Greenland. They have named it the Davis Strait proto-microcontinent. This finding shows how complicated tectonic movements have changed the Earth’s geological structure over time.

Formation of the Davis Strait Proto-Microcontinent

The tectonic action in the area is directly linked to the formation of this newly found geological feature. Researchers have found that the microcontinent formed during the Paleogene time, 33 to 61 million years ago. The area is different from mainland Greenland and Baffin Island because it has a piece of continental crust that is thicker than usual and bands of continental crust that are smaller and slightly thinner around it.

Plate Tectonics and Continental Development

Plate tectonics is the study of how the Earth’s lithospheric plates move and interact with each other. It has a direct effect on how countries form and on natural events like volcanoes, earthquakes, and mountain ranges. The area around Davis Strait, which is between Canada and Greenland, is very important because it is on the edge of two plates where a lot of seismic activity has happened.

Research and Analysis

Luke Longley, Dr. Jordan Phethean from the University of Derby, and Dr. Christian Schiffer from Uppsala University did a long study that explains in detail how this proto-microcontinent came to be. By figuring out how plates moved over about 30 million years, they were able to pinpoint how this one-of-a-kind geographic formation formed. The rifting that started these events happened around 118 million years ago, during the Lower Cretaceous period. The most important changes happened between 49 and 58 million years ago. The researchers used gravity and seismic reflection data to figure out how old the faults were, how the mid-ocean ridge formed, and how the transform faults were connected. This helped them understand how the tectonics changed over time to separate this thick continental piece and make the proto-microcontinent.

About Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics is a theory that was developed in the middle of the 20th century to explain how the Earth’s lithospheric plates move and change shape. Earth’s internal heat, which comes from nuclear decay and leftover primordial heat, is what moves the plates. Plates can move up to a few centimeters a year, which is about the same rate at which fingernails grow. Earthquakes mostly happen when two plates meet. The Pacific Plate, which goes around the “Ring of Fire,” moves up to 10 cm per year, making it one of the fastest. Plates moving around cause supercontinents like Pangaea to form every 600 million years or so. When one plate moves under another, this is called subduction. It recycles the crust of the Earth into the mantle. Mid-ocean ridges, like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, are important places where new crust forms and spreads apart at different speeds.

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