Half the original mass of India and Eurasia disappeared into the Earth’s interior before the two landmasses began their slow-motion collision about 60 million years ago, a new study has found. The study by researchers at University of Chicago in the US has important implications for our understanding of when the continents grew to their present size and how the chemistry of the Earth’s interior has evolved.
It examined the collision of Eurasia and India, which began about 60 million years ago, created the Himalayas and is still in slow progress.
The scientists computed with unprecedented precision the amount of landmass, or “continental crust,” before and after the collision.
“What we found is that half of the mass that was there 60 million years ago is missing from the earth’s surface today,” said Miquela Ingalls, a graduate student who led the project.