Earth Only Has 6 Continents Not 7, Claims New Study

A team of researchers from the University of Derby, led by Dr Jordan Phethean, has made a startling claim that Earth has only six continents not seven as known by all, stated a report published in Earth.com.

The researchers have made this claim by stating that the break-up of the European and North American continents is not complete and still continuing.

“The discovery indicates that the North America and Eurasian tectonic plates have not yet actually broken apart, as is traditionally thought to have happened 52 million years ago,” the earth.com quoted Dr Phethean as saying.

“They are, in fact, still stretching and in the process of breaking apart,” added Dr Phethean.

The new study is based on the study of Iceland, located between the Greenland Sea and North Atlantic Ocean. Till now, it was believed that Iceland was formed 60 million years ago due to friction in the mid-Atlantic ridge.

But the new study challenges this theory, claiming that Iceland and the Greenland Iceland Faroes Ridge (GIFR) also contain pieces of lost and submerged fragments from both the European and North American continents.

This team of researchers suggest that these landforms are not isolated but interconnected components of a larger continental structure.

But this research is still in its conceptual phase. The team plans to explore volcanic rocks in Iceland for more concrete evidence of ancient continental crust, said the Earth.com report.