The case of the disappearing continent

How can a land mass the size of India just... disappear?

Sometimes the answer you've been looking for is right beneath you.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Mikhail Tolstoy / Alamy Stock Photo)

Miquela Ingalls did not set out to solve a 6-million-year-old mystery when she began her studies in geophysical science at The University of Chicago. In fact, the doctoral student had no idea there was a mystery to be solved. She was busy with her dissertation work when she and her colleagues discovered something odd. Very odd, in fact. A giant land mass the size of India had simply vanished off the surface of the Earth, without anyone even noticing.

How could this have happened? With her colleagues, Ingalls set out to answer that question. But to figure out where the land had gone, they had to go back — way back — to a time long before humans, or any of our close ancestors, roamed the Earth, back to when there was a huge continental collision.

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Hallie Golden

Hallie Golden is a freelance journalist in Salt Lake City. Her articles have been published in such places as The New York Times, The Economist, and The Atlantic. She previously worked as a reporter for The Associated Press.