New Techniques Reconstruct Gondwana Break-Up
13.04.2010 - Land & Geology, Antarctic
Scientists have made new discoveries about the break-up of Gondwana, the supercontinent made up of present-day Antarctica, Australia and India which existed around 500 million years ago in the Southern Hemisphere. While in Antarctica, the team of scientists used three-dimensional imaging to find evidence of how the suprcontinent broke apart.
Using a remote-sensing technique known as magnetotellurics to look through the ice, the scientists were able to find a large conductive region extending down about 30 kilometers into the Earth’s crust which appears to be the collision zone. In order to map this evidence, the team used electromagnetic surveys.
As a reasonably new technique to be employed in Antarctica, the results were extremely satisfying. Given the quality of these yielded results, scientists are now hoping to take the methods further inland on the continent and look for similar structures in other places.
