[Rockhounds] New incompletely rifted microcontinent identified between Greenland and Canada

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Plate tectonics are the driving force behind Earth's continental
configurations, with the lithosphere (oceanic and continental crusts and
upper mantle) moving due to convection processes occurring in the softer
underlying asthenospheric mantle. Many earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and
mountain formations are direct consequences of the movements of these
globe-spanning plates, particularly at their margins.

One such plate boundary occurs between Canada and Greenland, which has
formed the Davis Strait seaway connecting two ocean basins, the Labrador
Sea and Baffin Bay. The tectonic evolution of the Davis Strait is dated to
~33–61 million years ago (Ma) during the Paleogene, during which one
particularly unusual feature formed—a thicker than normal (19–24 km)
fragment of continental crust in the ocean.

This is now deemed to be a newly-recognized, incompletely rifted and
submerged microcontinent offshore of west Greenland: the Davis Strait
proto-microcontinent.

https://phys.org/news/2024-07-incompletely-rifted-microcontinent-greenland-canada.html