China-led study reveals ‘Greater Gondwana’ was 80% of Earth’s crust 500m years ago
Fragments of a long-disappeared ancient giant land mass have been discovered buried deep beneath parts of the modern continents that once formed it, according to an international team led by Chinese scientists. Published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, the discovery reveals that Gondwana – a land mass that dominated Earth some 500 million years ago – was much larger than…
An international team of scientists led by Chinese researchers has unveiled the true extent of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, which dominated Earth approximately 500 million years ago. The groundbreaking discovery, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, reveals that Gondwana was significantly larger than previously thought, spanning a whopping 80% of the planet's continental crust at the time.
This substantial revision of Gondwana's size was made possible by the team's innovative "CT scan" of the Earth's deep crust, employing a geochemical fingerprinting technique called neodymium isotopic mapping on a vast database of 25,346 igneous rock samples. This finding has major implications for our understanding of the planet's history, as it shows how Gondwana's geological activity played a crucial role in creating the favorable conditions for the Cambrian explosion, a period of rapid diversification of life.
The study's lead author, Wang Tao from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, highlighted the importance of this discovery in rethinking the layout of Earth's early continents and the influence of deep-Earth internal activity on surface environments and the evolution of life.
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