A Earth is a veritable open book of ancient stories, and a recent revelation takes us back to 120 million years ago, when a colossal tectonic plate, the Pontus, existed on the planet.
With an extension that covered a quarter of the current Pacific Ocean, this discovery transforms our understanding of the planet's geological dynamics.
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It is estimated that the Pontus Plate was a protagonist in the Earth's oceans, occupying a vast area between Eurasia and Australia.
This becomes even more impressive when we consider that the Pacific Ocean, the largest ocean in the world, covers 161.7 million square kilometers.
(Image: Utrecht University/Reproduction)
The Pontus Plate was lost deep in Earth's history when Pangea fragmented and new tectonic plates emerged, swallowing this giant over millions of years.
Unraveling this geological enigma
The existence of the Pontus Plate was only recently confirmed by a team of geologists who used an innovative approach.
They examined rock formations in northern Borneo that revealed surprising clues about the existence of this lost plate.
However, what initially appeared to be the discovery of an already known plaque turned into the revelation of something much more mysterious.
Suzanna van de Lagemaat, a geologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, explained: “We thought we were dealing with relics of a lost tablet that we already knew about. But our magnetic laboratory research on these rocks indicated that our findings were originally from much further north and had to be the remains of a different plate, formerly unknown.”
Geologists have immersed themselves in the challenging task of reconstructing the movements of tectonic plates that have shaped our planet from the age of the dinosaurs to the present day.
Avoiding the use of scarce paleogeomagnetic data in the region, they chose to observe the region of the Western Pacific and its predecessor, the Panthalassa superocean, which surrounded the supercontinent Pangea.
The research results indicated fragments of an ancient tectonic plate that sank deep into the Earth's mantle. These fragments have been identified in places such as Palawan, an island in the Philippines, and in the South China Sea, confirming the existence of the Pontus Plate.
Such structures are invisible sculptors of the Earth's landscape, constantly in motion over the Earth's mantle.
There are fourteen main plates that make up our planet's crust, and their slow and continuous movements They are responsible for the creation of mountains, ocean trenches, volcanic activities, earthquakes and tsunamis.
The discovery of the Pontus Plate is a reminder that, although we know a lot about the Earth, there are still countless stories hidden within it, patiently waiting to be uncovered.
Each new discovery reveals a fascinating chapter of the geological past and expands our understanding of this world we call home.
