New Zealand nearly drowns
Sinking and rising seas reduce a continent to scattered islands — and possibly to nothing at all.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 3 million years
- Known to
- ± 2 million years
- Era
- Oligocene, Cenozoic
Through the Oligocene, subsidence combined with marine transgression reduces the emergent land of Zealandia to a small fraction of its earlier extent, with maximum submergence around 25 to 23 million years ago. Whether it went completely underwater is a genuine and unresolved argument: the geology permits total drowning, while the biology objects, because kauri, tuatara, Leiopelma frogs and other ancient lineages appear to have been there continuously. The dispute is a good example of two evidence streams pulling against each other.