Rediscovery of Pontus: Geologists discover the remains of a long-lost tectonic plate 1/4 the size of the Pacific Ocean!

 

Rediscovery of Pontus: Geologists discover the remains of a long-lost tectonic plate 1/4 the size of the Pacific Ocean!

In Earth’s lengthy history of over 4.5 billion years, there are numerous threads that we’re yet to entangle. One such ginormous thread has recently been undone, adding a new bankruptcy to our planet’s geological records. 

 Scientists have successfully exposed another lengthy-lost secret of our planet: a huge tectonic plate that becomes as soon as one-quarter the dimensions of the Pacific Ocean!

Suzanna van de Lagemaat, a geologist from Utrecht University, reconstructed a huge and previously unknown tectonic plate named Pontus at the same time as exploring the planet's maximum complex plate tectonic place — the place across the Philippines. This discovery was made viable by way of piecing together fragments of antique tectonic plates, located deep in Earth's mantle, throughout the mountain levels in Japan, Borneo, the Philippines, New Guinea and New Zealand. 

 Using geological records, van de Lagemaat mapped the moves of present tectonic plates in the place, seeking out the ones that had vanished in the western Pacific. However, it became all through their fieldwork in northern Borneo that the researchers observed important remnants of Pontus. Initially, they suspected these rocks to be components of a lost plate, but magnetic lab research showed that they were, in reality, the remnants of Pontus.

 But the journey did not stop. Scientists have found remains of Pontus not only in northern Borneo, but in Palawan in the western Philippines and in the South China Sea, suggesting a much more northern origin than previously thought.

Each fragment of the geological survey came together to reveal a surprising new discovery: one coherent plate tectonic system stretching from southern Japan to New Zealand, which has been in existence for at least 150 million years!

 Pontus was previously thought to exist when subducting plates left their footprints in the fabric of the Earth, revealing hotspots or unusual features. When seismic images capture such disturbances in seismic signals, they help geologists detect these anomalies, and identify fragments of tectonic plates that have since disappeared through subduction above the Earth’s surface, producing rocks hidden in mountain belts.

 Although the prediction was made by van de Lagemaatt and his colleagues more than a decade ago, his recent reconstruction of the lost plates of Pontus is independent evidence that tells us the whole story in all its glory.

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