Lost Archipelago Discovered

[GordMay]

Lost landmass, once home to 500,000 people, discovered under the sea

A, now-submerged, continental shelf landmass, covering some 390,000 square kilometres (±242,300 sq. miles], which was once home to up to half a million people, has been discovered [1], off the coast of northern Australia.
This archipelago, covering an area larger than New Zealand, appeared between 70,000 and 61,000 years ago, and remained stable for about 9,000 years.

With descent into the last Ice Age, polar ice caps grew and sea levels dropped, by up to 120 meters. This fully exposed the shelf, for the first time in 100,000 years.

When the last Ice Age ended, around 18,000 years ago, global warming caused sea levels to rise, which drowned out swathes of the world's continents.
This split the supercontinent of Sahul into New Guinea and Australia, and cut Tasmania off from the mainland.

The region contained a mosaic of habitable fresh, and saltwater environments. The most salient of these features was the Malita inland sea.
This sea existed for 10,000 years [27,000 to 17,000 years ago], with a surface area greater than 18,000 square kilometres, according to the archaeologists.

More about:
“People once lived in a vast region in north-western Australia—and it had an inland sea” ~ Griffith University [Queensland, Au]
➥ https://phys.org/news/2023-12-people...traliaand.html

[1] “Sea level rise drowned a vast habitable area of north-western Australia driving long-term cultural change” ~ by Kasih Norman et al
➥ https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...77379123004663

[RaymondR]

There'll be a land rights claim lodged in no time and demands for financial compensation for the oil and gas produced from there.

The group of islands to the east just off the coast are the Tiwi islands. A company called Santos is trying to make a pipeline tie in from a gas field they have north of the islands. There is an extant pipeline from one of the gas fields which are situated in the "new archipeligo" which is depleting and which currently feeds an LNG export gas plant in Darwin harbour. The tie in would allow the plant to operate for another twenty or so years.

One of the Tiwi islanders has a case in the federal court to attempt to stop the pipeline tie in. The basis of the claim is that a mythical sea serpent might be disturbed. The usual solution to these types of problems is to pay "go away" money.

[SomeGuyInaShirt]

cool beans!