About 1,200 miles off the coast of Africa, east of Madagascar, the tropical island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean is often celebrated as one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Indeed, Mark Twain once said, “Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.”
A beckoning paradise for cruising boat owners, Mauritius seems to have it all: pristine waters, white beaches, deep-sea fishing, scuba diving, an exotic location. But now it has something truly unique: It’s sitting on top of the lost continent of Mauritia that scientists say broke up and sank about 85 million years ago.
Mauritius, as we know it today, was formed some nine million years ago from cooling lava spewed up by underwater volcanoes. But now scientists from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa have found the mineral zircon in rocks on Mauritius that they determined were about 3 billion years old. They believe the zircon belonged to a vanished landmass, what once was a mega-continent they have named Mauritia.
Read about it here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130225-microcontinent-earth-mauritius-geology-science/
