Scientists drilled into continent that's been missing for 375 years to see what happened to it

A whole continent which has gone walk-a-bout for nearly 400 years?

Granted, it sounds pretty wild, particularly given how much we know about our planet already.

However, there's one particular area of our globe that has remained a bit of an unknown - even to scientists - and it's within the deep oceans of the South Pacific.

How does a continent end up missing? I hear you ask (Getty Stock Image)

The waters surrounding New Zealand have intrigued scientists for years and in particular, the discovery of a new continent called Zealandia - or Te Riu-a-Māui, in the Māori dialect - in 2017.

Zealandia is the planet's eighth continent with the majority of it lying just a kilometer underwater.

First came the discovery, then followed by in-depth research by a group of scientists to try and unpack the continent's secrets.

To get these answers, a team of 32 scientists from 12 different countries drilled into the rock and studied what they found.

Zealandia, Earth's eighth continent (Ulrich Lange/Wikimedia Commons)

Jamie Allan, program director in the US National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, the team leading the 2017 project, said: "Zealandia, a sunken continent long lost beneath the oceans, is giving up its 60 million-year-old secrets through scientific ocean drilling.

"This expedition offered insights into Earth's history, ranging from mountain-building in New Zealand to the shifting movements of Earth's tectonic plates to changes in ocean circulation and global climate."

The ambitious plan was part of a nine-week voyage that saw researchers drill deep into a seabed to sample rocks that comprise the eighth continent.

At six separate sites, the team drilled to depths of 1,250 meters and collected a whopping 2,500 meters worth of sediment and rock samples.

Scientists decided to drill into the continent (Getty Stock Image)

To keep the science relatively simple, the voyage recorded how the geology, volcanism, and climate of Zealandia have changed over the last 70 million years.

The results from the 2017 study were actually quite surprising, indicating Earth's eighth continent had a very different past.

Researchers found the remains of hundreds of fossils, covering a wide array of species that thrive in all different types of settings and climates.

It hinted that part of Zealandia is rather different to the subaquatic environment we all know about today.

Rupert Sutherland, co-author of the study, said at the time: "Big geographic changes across northern Zealandia, which is about the same size as India, have implications for understanding questions such as how plants and animals dispersed and evolved in the South Pacific.

"The discovery of past land and shallow seas now provides an explanation. There were pathways for animals and plants to move along."