刚刚，研究人员在欧洲发现了一块失落的大陆

刚刚，研究人员在欧洲发现了一块失落的大陆

Researchers have discovered a long-hidden continent — a gigantic mass the size of Greenland that has remained mostly buried under Southern Europe for almost 140 million years.

研究人员发现了一个隐藏已久的大陆——一块与格陵兰岛大小相仿的巨大大陆，在南欧地下埋藏了将近1.4亿年。

The hidden continent — dubbed “Greater Adria” by its finders at Utrecht University in the Netherlands — apparently separated from North Africa and ended up largely underwater.

这片被荷兰乌得勒支大学的发现者称为“大阿德里亚”的隐藏大陆，显然与北非分离，最终大部分沉入水下。

It was discovered when the researchers were reconstructing the complex geology of the Mediterranean as it evolved, according to CNN.

据美国有线电视新闻网(cnn)报道，这是研究人员在重建地中海演化过程中的复杂地质结构时发现的。

The research was published this month in the scientific journal Gondwana Research.

这项研究本月发表在科学杂志《冈瓦纳研究》(Gondwana research)上。

The researchers said it is possible that many people have unknowingly set foot on Greater Adria.

研究人员说，很多人可能在不知不觉中踏上了大阿德里亚。

“Forget Atlantis,” Douwe van Hinsbergen, study author and professor of global tectonics and paleogeography at Utrecht University, told the news outlet. “Without realizing it, vast numbers of tourists spend their holiday each year on the lost continent of Greater Adria.”

乌得勒支大学全球构造和古地理教授、研究作者杜韦·范·欣斯伯根在接受新闻媒体采访时说:“忘掉亚特兰蒂斯吧。”“在没有意识到这一点的情况下，每年有大量的游客在失落的大阿德里亚大陆度假。”

While most of Greater Adria is underwater, much of the hidden continent’s sedimentary pieces were scraped off during its great migration.

虽然大阿德里亚大部分都在水下，但隐藏大陆的大部分沉积碎片在大迁徙期间被刮掉了。

Those scrapings now comprise European mountain belts, including parts of the Alps, Greece and Turkey.

这些残骸现在遍布欧洲山区，包括阿尔卑斯山、希腊和土耳其的部分地区。

“It is quite simply a geological mess. Everything is curved, broken and stacked,” van Hinsbergen said. “Compared to this, the Himalayas, for example, represent a rather simple system.”

“这完全是一个地质混乱。一切都是弯曲的，破碎的和堆叠的。”范辛斯伯格说。“例如，与此相比，喜马拉雅山代表了一个相当简单的系统。”

He said the research into the evolution of mountain chains can reveal details about the evolution of continents.

他说，对山脉演化的研究可以揭示大陆演化的细节。

“Most mountain chains that we investigated originated from a single continent that separated from North Africa more than 200 million years ago,” van Hinsbergen said. “The only remaining part of this continent is a strip that runs from Turin via the Adriatic Sea to the heel of the boot that forms Italy.”

范辛斯伯格说：“我们调查的大多数山脉起源于一个大陆，这个大陆在2亿多年前与北非分离。这块大陆仅存的一部分，是一条从都灵经亚得里亚海一直延伸到形成意大利的鞋跟的地带。”

The researchers found that Greater Adria started to become its own continent during the Triassic period some 240 million years ago.

研究人员发现，大亚得里亚海在大约2.4亿年前的三叠纪时期开始形成自己的大陆。

“From this mapping emerged the picture of Greater Adria, and several smaller continental blocks too, which now form parts of Romania, North Turkey or Armenia, for example,” van Hinsbergen told CNN.

范·欣斯伯根告诉CNN：“从这张地图上可以看到大阿德里亚和几个较小的大陆块，它们现在是罗马尼亚、土耳其北部或亚美尼亚的一部分。”

“The deformed remnants of the top few kilometers of the lost continent can still be seen in the mountain ranges. The rest of the piece of continental plate, which was about 100 kilometers [62 miles] thick, plunged under Southern Europe into the Earth’s mantle, where we can still trace it with seismic waves up to a depth of 1,500 kilometers [932 miles].”

“在山脉中仍然可以看到失落大陆顶部几公里的变形遗迹。大陆板块的其余部分，大约100公里(62英里)厚，坠入南欧的地幔之下，在那里我们仍然可以用地震波追踪到1500公里(932英里)的深度。”

This isn’t the first time a lost continent has been discovered.

这不是第一次发现失落的大陆。

In January 2017, researchers announced the discovery of a lost continent left over from the supercontinent Gondwana, which began disintegrating 200 million years ago.

2017年1月，研究人员宣布发现了冈瓦纳大陆超大陆遗留下来的失落大陆，冈瓦纳大陆在2亿年前开始解体。

The lava-covered leftover piece is now under Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean.

这块被熔岩覆盖的残片现在位于印度洋上的毛里求斯岛之下。

And in September 2017, another research team found the lost continent of Zealandia through ocean drilling in the South Pacific, where it sits two-thirds of a mile under the sea.

而在2017年9月，另一个研究小组通过在南太平洋的海洋钻探发现了失落的新西兰大陆，它位于海下三分之二英里处。