For a few days, a group of researchers from the University of Derby does not stop saying that he has found a new (micro) continent in the Davis Strait. That is, between Greenland and North America.
And yes, it sounds a little Martian. How will we have lost an entire continent in the 1,143 kilometers that measures that strait?
What devils is a continent? The most intuitive response is “a large surface of land surrounded by water”; But the truth is that it only works in theory and, when we land the problem, everything is complicated. Therefore, if the question is “how many continents are in the world?”, The only logical answer is this: “depends”.
How does it “depend”? The reasons behind many of the divisions we handle are “purely historical and cultural.” In fact, as Miguel García explains, “the educational systems of different countries establish different continental divisions”:
- In Anglo -Saxon countries, the most common to say that there are seven continents (Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Antarctica and Oceania);
- On the other hand, in the countries of Romance Languages, the most common response is that there are six continents (joining the Americas in one);
- Six continents are also those that are explained in the countries of the Exsovietic orbit (although they keep America separate and what they join is Europe and Asia).
There are more options, of course. For example, we could join Asia, Africa and Europe in a single continent and, together with America, Australia and Antarctica, they would be four. By power, we could even get the Antarctica out because, in short, without its snow layer it would become an archipelago (whose is island older would be smaller than Australia).
It is time to admit that the continents do not exist. They are social constructs, such as municipalities or provinces. Hence, as Garcia explains, from a geological point of view, it can be concluded that the continents do not constitute a scientific concept. In any case, we can talk about tectonic plates (and, although defining your number is also a mess, we would not talk about less than 15).
So what are Derby researchers talking about? It is time to enter into the subject: what researchers have used is something else, the thickness of the earth’s crust. In general, there are two types of terrestrial bark: the continental (about 35 kilometers thick) and the oceanic (between 8 to 10).
What they have realized is that as the tectonic plates between Canada and Greenland have been moving, the earth’s crust has reconfigured. The result has been a protocontinental cortex (that is, extremely thick) in what should be an oceanic crust.
And what is all this for? We must recognize that, once we land the matter, everything seems more boring. However, the finding is very interesting: we don’t really know how the tectonic dynamics work. We have very developed ideas and models, yes; But at the moment of truth, there are more questions than answers.
Being able to study in detail the formation of a protomicrocontinent is a unique opportunity to understand phenomena such as the one that is dividing Africa into two. And we have already seen that, unlike what we tend to believe, this has a real incidence in the daily life of millions of people.
Imagen | Kate ter Haar
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