Geologists of the US National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found the answer to the question why they found rocks in Panama despite the fact that there are no intense volcanic activity in the territory, Expresso writes.
For several decades, scientists could not explain the detection of balance of volcanic activity in Panama. It turned out that these breeds were carried out by the “mantle wind” through a kind of “underground move” from the Galapagos Islands. The latter are at a distance of more than 1609 kilometers from Panama. A group of islands in the east of the Equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean is located 972 kilometers west of Ecuador.
Experts analyzed the composition of the stone extracted in Panama. It was almost identical to the samples from the Galapagos Islands. Geologists concluded that the Galapagos Mantle Clay “blown out” material through a small “window” about eight million years ago on a Panaman plate.
This discovery can change the submission of scientists about geological processes occurring under the surface of the Earth. Now they know that hot spots like the formed Galapagos Islands and Hawaii are not fixed.
Previously, geologists said that under the waters of the Pacific Ocean in its south-western part there is Zealand – the eighth continent of the Earth.