Researchers find possible traces of continent off coast of Brazil

Researchers find possible traces of continent off coast of Brazil

Published May 08, 2013
FoxNews.com



A Geological Service of Brazi member standing next to rocks digged out from the deep-sea during dredging works, 1,500 km from the shore of Rio de Janeiro. According to the CPRM director, Roberto Ventura Santos, the rocks would be part of the former continent submerged when the Atlantic Ocean rose up from the separation of now Africa and South America. (AFP Photo/CPRM/HO)

A research team says they have found an area off the coast of Brazil that may have contained parts of the original continent Pangaea, which existed before the Americas, Africa and other land masses drifted apart.

"When these samples came aboard the ship, the first surprise was, 'what are these rocks doing here?'” said Dr. Roberto Ventura, the director of geology and mineral resources at the Brazilian Geological Survey. “We did petrographic, geochemical (and) geological studies of this material."

A team of Brazilian and Japanese researchers made the discoveries during a month-long expedition above the Rio Grande Elevation, which is a rise on the ocean floor around 930 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Reuters reports.

Using a three-person submarine making dives as deep as 21, 000 feet, the team found granite and minerals like iron and cobalt.
The materials found differ from the rest of the surrounding seabed, leading researchers to hypothesize that the area was once an island.


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Submarine ridge off Brazil: piece of sole original continent?

RIO DE JANEIRO | Tue May 7, 2013 11:52pm IST
(Reuters) - Brazilian and Japanese researchers say a granite formation deep off the coast of Brazil could be a piece of an original continent that existed before the Americas, Africa, Europe and other major land masses drifted apart.

After a month long expedition using a research submarine, the scientists say the so-called Rio Grande Elevation, a rise on the ocean floor about 1,500 km (932 miles) southeast of Rio de Janeiro, features granite and minerals, including iron, manganese, and cobalt, that differentiate it from the rest of the surrounding seabed.

As such, the researchers believe, the formation could be a lost piece of Pangaea, the sole continent that geologists say existed before today's continents began to drift apart hundreds of millions of years ago.

While the hypothesis must still be tested through further research, the lost piece "could revolutionize our understanding of the formation and evolution of the Earth's crust," said Roberto Ventura, a director at the Brazilian Geological Service and a member of the team that announced the discovery on Monday.

The research was conducted aboard the Shinkai 6500, a Japanese submarine currently deployed as part of a joint mission by the Brazilian Geological Service, the Oceanographic Institute of the University of Sao Paulo and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

The mission, which will resume after a break in Rio, is gathering geological and biological samples collected in various portions of the South Atlantic

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/05/07/brazil-science-continent-idINDEE9460CJ20130507