What happened to Argoland?

The structure of the seafloor indicates that this part of the continent probably moved northwestward, reaching where the present-day islands of Southeast Asia are located. But surprisingly, only small remnants of continental fragments lie beneath these islands, and they are surrounded by much older ocean basins. So what happened to Argoland?

Geologists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands have managed to reconstruct the history of the lost continent. It turns out that Argoland still exists.

We were literally dealing with islands of information, which is why our research took so long: we spent seven years putting the puzzle together. The situation in Southeast Asia is very different from places like Africa and South America, where the continent is clearly divided into two. Argoland was divided into many parts,
– says Elder Advocaat, one of the authors of the study.

Later, thanks to plate tectonics, the pieces reached their current positions almost simultaneously and then came together. The debris formed a collage: Argoland is today hidden beneath the green forests of much of Indonesia and Myanmar. This situation is typical for a microcontinent.

There has never been a single, clearly defined and unified continent of Argoland. an entire archipelago consisting of parts separated by ocean basins. The splitting of Argoland began approximately 300 million years ago and accelerated 215 million years ago.

Geologists confirmed the findings by exploring Sumatra, the Andaman Islands, Borneo, Sulawesi and Timor, where they determined the age of key rock layers.