Scientist claim they just found a new continent

Question

The claim seems about true, they are saying that the international Ocean Discovery Program, researchers on board dug 1,000 meters into the ocean floor off the South Island of New Zealand in January 2025. In order to investigate the subduction zone dynamics, they focused on the northern edge of Zealandia. The majority of the continent was submerged by tectonic processes, as demonstrated by the volcanic ash layers and fault structures found in core samples taken from the drill site 25 million years ago.

Answer 1

The continent referenced in the claim is referring to Zealandia an underwater in the Pacific Ocean. It is thought to have broken away from the continent of Australia and sunk below sea level and is primarily submerged with high points in the form of New Zealand and New Caledonia. NBC a credible news company covered this in 2017 making the information in the article a bit dated. However provided valuable information that make it probable to to deep this claim misleading. The article describes a scientific recognition and essentially a reclassification of a already known and discovered region. In sum, describing Zealandia as a new discovery is a misleading title because the land mass was not newly found but it was determined that the land mass met the criteria to be deemed a contient. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/scientists-say-they-ve-discovered-hidden-continent-under-new-zealand-n722796
 

Answer 2

This claim is misleading, and scientists did not just find a new continent. Back in 2017 Alex Kasprak published an article in 2017 talking about the discovery of this new continent called Zealandia. He states that, “Although many news outlets ran this story with some variation of the headline ‘Scientists discover new continent’, this story represents neither a discovery nor a ‘new’ portion of Earth’s crust.” This is showing that Zealandia has been being talked about since then, and that they are just finding more about it now. Many news outlets ran this story back in 2017 as well, making it known to the public what was going on. The World Economic Forum published an article in 2017 titled “Zealandia is the world's newest continent. This is how it stayed hidden for so long”, explaining everything that they know about this continent, so it's been known for 9 years now. So no scientist did not just find a new continent, they have just found more information about it. 

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/03/this-is-how-scientists-uncovered-the-worlds-newest-continent/ 

https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/02/18/scientists-discover-new-continent/

Answer 3

This claim is misleading, and scientists did not just find a new continent. Back in 2017, Alex Kasprak published an article in 2017 talking about the discovery of this new continent called Zealandia. He states that, “Although many news outlets ran this story with some variation of the headline ‘Scientists discover new continent’, this story represents neither a discovery nor a ‘new’ portion of Earth’s crust.” This shows that Zealandia has been talked about since then, and that they are just finding more about it now. Many news outlets also ran this story back in 2017, making it known to the public what was going on. The World Economic Forum published an article in 2017 titled “Zealandia is the world's newest continent. This is how it stayed hidden for so long.” This talks about everything that they knew about this continent at this time, so it's been known for 9 years now. So no scientist didn’t just found a new continent, they have just found more information about it and continue to share it with the public. 

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/03/this-is-how-scientists-uncovered-the-worlds-newest-continent/ 

https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/02/18/scientists-discover-new-continent/