Zealandia – a new continent submerged in the southwest Pacific – is a step closer to being recognised, the authors of a new scientific paper claim. A paper published in GSA Today, the journal of the Geological Society of America, contends that the vast, continuous expanse of continental crust, which centres on New Zealand, is distinct enough to constitute a separate continent. Despite the obvious question of how something so large could be previously undiscovered, the paper’s authors argue that even “the large and the obvious in natural science can be overlooked”. Zealandia covers nearly 5m square km (1.9m sq...