Every continent has been fully mapped
The core idea stands, but key numbers or details have changed.
TaughtThe age of exploration is over. Every continent has been surveyed, charted, and mapped; there are no blank spaces left on the map of Earth's landmasses.
NowIn 2023, Zealandia became the first continent in the world to have its full geology mapped, and it only counts as a continent at all because of work completed after 2017. Almost 95 percent of its five million square kilometres sits underwater, which is exactly why it took until 2023 to chart.
What actually happened
Zealandia, or Te Riu-a-Māui, is a nearly submerged landmass about two-thirds the size of Australia, with New Zealand and New Caledonia as the high points poking above the sea. It was argued to be a genuine continent, continental crust, distinct geology, clear boundaries, and large enough, in a 2017 paper, and by 2021 it was widely accepted as Earth's eighth. Most world maps and school curricula still show seven.
The 2023 milestone was completing the geological map. A team led by GNS Science dredged rock samples from the seafloor and combined them with magnetic surveys to chart the basement geology of North Zealandia, the last unmapped section, out to the continent's underwater edges. It made Zealandia the first continent to be fully geologically mapped, ahead of the ones we actually live on.
The correction has two layers. The number of continents is arguably eight, not seven, a change most textbooks have not made; and the confident claim that Earth's land is all charted misses that a whole continent's geology was being drawn for the first time in 2023. The blank spaces did not vanish, they were underwater.
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Sources
- GNS Science: Zealandia just became the first continent to be completely mappedgns.cri.nz
- Tectonics (AGU): Reconnaissance Basement Geology and Tectonics of North Zealandiaagupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Who was taught this
Still standard through 2023, so anyone who finished school between 1950 and 2023 learned the earlier version.