Researchers find a 1.7-billion-year-old piece of North America clinging onto Australia

Geologists recently discovered that there’s a roughly 1.7-billion-year-old piece of North America clinging onto Queensland, Australia.

Testing of rocks in Australia’s Georgetown region revealed signatures that are much like those found in Canada and bear absolutely no resemblance to anything else known in Australia today.

“Our research shows that about 1.7 billion years ago, Georgetown rocks were deposited into a shallow sea when the region was part of North America,” Adam Nordsvan, one of the Curtin University scientists involved in the study, noted. “Georgetown then broke away from North America and collided with the Mount Isa region of northern Australia around 100 million years later.”

“This was a critical part of global continental reorganization when almost all continents on Earth assembled to form the supercontinent called Nuna,” he further commented.

When Nuna later broke apart, the rogue North American section went with Australia.

According to the team, this finding will help reveal more about how the early supercontinent formed.