WELLINGTON, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- A recently completed study of the geological history of New Zealands offshore northwestern region has revealed new insights into the break-up of the Gondwana supercontinent during the time of the dinosaurs.
The study is believed the be the first to recognize two distinct phases of rifting based on seismic data across an extensive part of Gondwana where the Earths crust is stretched and breaks up, according to a Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) release on Thursday.
It will help geologists better predict where and when coal-bearing rocks -- from which oil and gas can form -- were deposited in the Earths crust. This will help in the search for new accumulations of oil and gas in New Zealand, the release said.
Gondwana was an ancient supercontinent that broke up about 180 million years ago. The continent eventually split into landmasses recognized today: Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula.
The study, which was published in the Journal of the Geological Society, London, also provides additional insights into how continents break-up and how ocean basins form, it said, adding that such separation of continents is a fundamental Earth process that continues to influence the topography of New Zealand to this very day.
Lead author Dominic Strogen, of GNS Science, said the study was a great example of how scientists can obtain benefits from geological data gathered and paid for by petroleum exploration companies and the New Zealand government as part of petroleum exploration.
Typically, after five years, all privately acquired petroleum exploration data in New Zealand becomes freely available and this gives scientists access to a large amount of high-quality data to investigate a wide range of earth processes, including natural hazards and climate history, Strogen said.
