‘Lush tropical island’ the size of Iceland that has been lost for 45 million years, found

RESEARCHERS have found evidence of a tropical island that is now underwater.

Brazilian and British scientists were exploring the seafloor around a volcanic plateau called Rio Grande Rise in 2018 when they came across evidence of the island.

Researchers have found evidence of an underwater tropical islandCredit: Getty

This bathymetric map shows seafloor features along the Brazilian meridional continental marginCredit: Ana Alberoni, adapted from Alberoni et al., 2019)

The Rio Grande Rise is located approximately 745.6 miles (or 1200 km) off the southeastern Brazilian coast.

The island, estimated to be about the size of Iceland, existed about 45 million years ago.

Researchers believed that the island was formed by volcanic activity and drifted across the Atlantic Ocean before eventually sinking beneath the waves.

A recent expedition confirmed the island’s existence through the discovery of red clay, a sign of tropical soil.

The clay was spotted on video captured by a remotely operated submersible swimming about 650 meters below the surface.

“You just don’t find red clay on the seabed,” says marine biologist Bramley Murton, who was on the expedition.

“The deposits looked like tropical soils,” Murton explained.

The findings were shared in a recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The team explained that the clay’s mineral composition could only have formed in a tropical environment with heat and humidity.

“Imagine a lush tropical island slipping beneath the waves and remaining frozen in time. That’s what we discovered,” Murton said.

In the world’s busiest place on a paradise island with no room for cars, no police – and everyone is related

This discovery provides new insights into the geological history of the region.

Furthermore, the findings may help us better understand the processes that shape Earth’s land.

“This is an excellent result,” said Luigi Jovane, a marine geologist at the University of São Paulo and co-author of the study.

“The red clays are compelling evidence that this was once an island,” the scientists added.

MORE ABOUT THE RIO GRANDE RISE

the Rio Grande Rise dates back as much as 80 million years ago and “began life as a Cretaceous version of Iceland,” Murton said.

It came from a giant plume of hot rock called a mantle plume, which caused intense volcanic eruptions deep beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

This fiery activity produced the vast volcanic plateau that moved westward across the Atlantic Ocean over time.

“They arose on the South American and African tectonic plates, respectively, by the Tristan-Gough mantle plume, located beneath or in the vicinity of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) during the Late Cretaceous,” the study said.