Chunk of an ancient supercontinent discovered under New Zealand

As the California heat blazed outside in the summer of 2018, Rose Turnbull sat in the cool confines of a windowless basement sorting through grains of fine sand. A geologist based in New Zealand, Turnbull was in a colleague’s lab at California State University, Northridge, trying to find tiny crystals of zircon, which she hoped would help unravel secrets of the mysterious eighth continent of Zealandia, also known by its Māori name Te Riu-a-Māui.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/chunk-of-an-ancient-supercontinent-discovered-under-new-zealand

National Geographic