I have looked at the link and I think it stretches the meaning of the word 'continent' to unreasonable limits and far beyond that which most people would naturally agree with. They confirmed that it contains some 'continental crust', which I don't dispute, but I think the problem here is that the land mass associated with it is still simply far too small for most people to agree that it conforms to what they would naturally mean by the word 'continent'.
I would say there are still just 7 continents of the Earth.
Since a continent is defined as a contiguous land mass then either there are thousands of the things, since we'd have to treat every island as a continent, or there are four: Afro-eurasia, the Americas, Oceania and Antarctica.
The word "continent" isn't terribly precisely defined. What constitutes a continent depends on the context. The evidence is that a couple of hundred million years ago there was just one large continent. So I don't think that Australia is in much danger of losing her smallest continent status to Mauritius.
The Wikipedia article on continents reports that the term "continents" means different things to different communities reporting on different time periods. Also that the number currently taught in schools around the world ranges from 4 to 7. Nobody's counting Mauritius that I can see.
Originally posted by Kewpie The Wikipedia article on continents reports that the term "continents" means different things to different communities reporting on different time periods. Also that the number currently taught in schools around the world ranges from 4 to 7. Nobody's counting Mauritius that I can see.
How many continents are there?
06 Feb '17 03:14
Back to Top