Has the lost continent of Lemuria been found off Madagascar?

Image: Jack Abuin/ZUMA Press/Corbis via Nature 

Well this is one way to start out a Monday--researchers publishing in the journal Nature (yeah, a REAL scientific publication!) have confirmed that there is a forgotten continent submerged under the Indian Ocean. Could this be the source of the legend of the lost land of Lemuria?


Ring-tailed lemurs. Source: Wikipedia

In 1864, British zoologist Philip Sclater published a paper on primates from Madagascar--noting that they had similarities to organisms in India--but not Africa (the continent the isle is closest too). He speculated that India and Madagascar were once connected and dubbed the "lost" land continent to be "Lemuria". The name given to the primates he studied? Lemurs!

His theory was that a land bridge connected Madgascar to India. When the continent broke up, it left behind separated groups of the same species that eventually evolved along divergent paths--but that still held similarities. The theory of land bridges became en vogue in the 19th century and eventually fell out of favor once plate tectonics was discovered.

Fast forward to today's news: After analyzing crystalization in beach sand, they concluded an island chain is actually the remains of a long lost continent. From Nature:

Evidence for the long-lost land comes from Mauritius (see photo at top), a volcanic island about 900 kilometres east of Madagascar. The oldest basalts on the island date to about 8.9 million years ago, says Bjørn Jamtveit, a geologist at the University of Oslo. Yet grain-by-grain analyses of beach sand that Jamtveit and his colleagues collected at two sites on the Mauritian coast revealed around 20 zircons — tiny crystals of zirconium silicate that are exceedingly resistant to erosion or chemical change — that were far older.

Another interesting bit...

The paper also suggests that not just one but many fragments of continental crust lie beneath the floor of the Indian Ocean. Analyses of Earth’s gravitational field reveal several broad areas where sea-floor crust is much thicker than normal — at least 25 to 30 kilometres thick, rather than the normal 5 to 10 kilometres. Those crustal anomalies may be the remains of a landmass that the team has dubbed Mauritia, which they suggest split from Madagascar when tectonic rifting and sea-floor spreading sent the Indian subcontinent surging northeast millions of years ago. Subsequent stretching and thinning of the region’s crust sank the fragments of Mauritia, which together had comprised an island or archipelago about three times the size of Crete, the researchers estimate.

So maybe Lemuria DID exist as a land bridge that later (for lack of a better term) "disolved" into the plate on which it rode. More research is needed, but the new science does seem to at least corroborate some of the earlier biology work done by Sclater.

The kicker? There may be MORE of these "ghost continents" lying in wait, under the oceans of the world. The researchers included, in the same journal, an additional submission positing the possibility that there are many more of these hidden land masses.

This is adding fuel to the claims that other forgotten continents like Mu and Atlantis also may have actually existed--or at least there is scientific basis behind the legends.

What do you think--are the legends true?

Martian test run in Austrian ice caves!

These amazing photographs are of a simulation experiment in ice caves located underneath Dachstein mountain in Austria that are serving as a test environment for space suits. Why would we need to test space suits in a cave? you ask. Well, so when we go to MARS we can see if perhaps life found a way to thrive underground.  

As you can see from these last two images, the trial also includes some rover robot testing. Pretty cool!

See caves are a great place for microbes to hang out because they benefit from a protected habitat that shields them from cosmic radiation, which is a known buzzkill when it comes to biology.

From Spiegal:

A dozen experiments are being conducted simultaneously in the caves. For example, the Magma Mars rover developed in Poland is navigating an ice surface. On board, it is carrying the Wisdom radar system, which is to be used on the next European Mars mission. The system can be used to analyze rocks at a depth of up to 3 meters (almost 10 feet). "Here in the ice, we can even examine as far as 10 meters deep," says project worker Stephen Clifford of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Without a doubt, though, the most spectacular test object is the "Aouda.X" Mars space suit. Tester Daniel Schildhammer is currently making his way in the space suit simulator through a giant cavern that is dotted with rocks. The shining silver suit, which weighs 45 kilograms (around 100 pounds), is also one of a kind, and is named after a Jules Verne character. In his classic novel "Around the World in 80 Days," the book's hero, Phileas Fogg, falls in love with the Indian princess Aouda.

Researcher Gernot Grömer, an astrophysicist at the University of Innsbruck goes on to talk about what makes caves ideal test environments.

"We've known for some time now that there are caves on Mars. And if there actually was life on its surface once, then they would have been the ideal places to retreat to." In astro-biological terms, there is certainly something to that: Cave systems, with their constant temperatures, elevated levels of humidity and, in particular, the protection they offer from cosmic radiation, seem the perfect refuge for simple life forms seeking a retreat. Still, the impressive images Dachstein has to offer were certainly a very pleasant side-effect for all the stakeholders.

Even got a little Jules Verne in there! Great stuff. Reminds me of another post a ways back.

This all is helping me close in on an idea I've had since that initial post on the crystal caves. Just amazing that we have these incredible images and research like this is actually being conducted. I'm in awe!


Image sources:
Spiegel Online
blog.oewf.org

Props to Boing Boing

Africa's Natural Nuclear Reactors

Image: United States Geological Survey and the Mineral Information Institute via Scientific American

Hat tip to Beam Me Up for finding this unusual story from Scientific American about a cache of uranium in a mine in Oklo (in Gabon) in western Africa that, in prehistoric times, had output a steady stream of energy for thousands of years. Now we're not talking Three-Mile Island here, it's more like 100 kilowatts of energy, but still, I find the idea of a "natural" nuclear power plant really intriguing.

From the Scientific American article by researcher Alex P. Meshik, PhD, who's studied the phenomenon:

Physicists confirmed the basic idea that natural fission reactions were responsible for the depletion in uranium 235 at Oklo quite soon after the anomalous uranium was discovered. Indisputable proof came from an examination of the new, lighter elements created when a heavy nucleus is broken in two. The abundance of these fission products proved so high that no other conclusion could be drawn. A nuclear chain reaction very much like the one that Enrico Fermi and his colleagues famously demonstrated in 1942 had certainly taken place, all on its own and some two billion years before.

Shortly after this astonishing discovery, physicists from around the world studied the evidence for these natural nuclear reactors and came together to share their work on “the Oklo phenomenon” at a special 1975 conference held in Libreville, the capital of Gabon. The next year George A. Cowan, who represented the U.S. at that meeting (and who, incidentally, is one of the founders of the renowned Santa Fe Institute, where he is still affiliated), wrote an article for Scientific American [see “A Natural Fission Reactor,” by George A. Cowan, July 1976] in which he explained what scientists had surmised about the operation of these ancient reactors.

Fascinating! Seems like fodder for a sci-fi story, doesn't it? Ancient astronauts plunder prehistoric earth for natural nuclear energy to power their spaceships and rayguns!