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Concept
Zealandia
Summary
Zealandia (pronounced ziːˈlændiə), also known as Te Riu-a-Māui (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust in Oceania that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago. It has been described variously as a submerged continent, continental fragment, and microcontinent. The name and concept for Zealandia was proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, and satellite imagery shows it to be almost the size of Australia. A 2021 study suggests Zealandia is 1 billion years old, about twice as old as geologists previously thought.
By approximately 23 million years ago, the landmass may have been completely submerged. Today, most of the landmass (94%) remains submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand is the largest part of Zealandia that is above sea level, followed by New Caledonia.
With a total area of approximately , Zealandia is substantially larger than any features termed microcontinents and continental fragments. If classified as a microcontinent, Zealandia would be the world's largest microcontinent. Its area is six times the area of Madagascar, the next-largest microcontinent in the world, and more than half the area of the Australian continent. Zealandia is more than twice the size of the largest intraoceanic large igneous province (LIP) in the world, the Ontong Java Plateau (approximately ), and the world's largest island, Greenland (). Zealandia is also substantially larger than the Arabian Peninsula (), the world's largest peninsula, and the Indian subcontinent (). Due to these and other geological considerations, such as crustal thickness and density, some geologists from New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Australia have concluded that Zealandia fulfills all the requirements to be considered a continent rather than a microcontinent or continental fragment. Geologist Nick Mortimer de commented that if it were not for the ocean level, it would have been recognized as such long ago.
Official source
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