Some 550 million years ago, the Earth looked very different from what it does today. The Southern Hemisphere was dominated by an enormous, single continent known as Gondwana.

This continent was first recognized by Austrian geologist Eduard Seuss in 1885 based on the presence of a unique plant fossil that was first discovered in the Gondwana Province of India. The fossils were then found in Australia, Africa, Antarctica, and South America, demonstrating that these land masses were once connected.

But whether Gondwana was an actual “supercontinent” has been a subject of intense scientific debate in recent years.

A new paper I coauthored, published in Science Advances, helps settle the debate. Our team found a previously hidden part of the Gondwanan landmass that’s now buried under mountains, which shows it was much bigger than previously thought.

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