Terra Australis
Terra Australis (also: Latin for "unknown southern land") was an imaginary continent, appearing on European maps from the XV century and the eighteenth century.
Terra Australis was introduced by Aristotle. The idea of Aristotle was later developed by Ptolemy , a Greek cartographer from the first century , who believed that the Indian Ocean was surrounded by the southern lands.
In the Renaissance , when Ptolemy was no longer the only source of information for cartographers European , terra australis began to appear on the charts and portolans. Although explorations have sometimes reduced the area where the continent could be found, cartographers continued to draw on their maps and scientists pleading for his life, saying for example that there should be large masses continental in the south as a counterweight to the large landmasses known in the northern hemisphere. Often this land was represented as a continent around the South Pole , but much larger than the Antarctic as we know it today, flowing away to the north and particularly in the Pacific.
The cartographers of the famous School of mapping Dieppe , represented, by the information given by the Portuguese navigators, from the mid-sixteenth century, a Terra Australis to as La Grande Jave. This "Great Jave" repeated the contours of Australia.
In 1515 , the cartographer and geographer German Johann Schner painted a world map showing the continent south of the Strait of Magellan, which he called "inferior Brasilia. This great land resumed the contours of Australia , but placed near the geographical area of the Antarctic. He resumed this work that deepens into a new world map in 1520. The Terra Australis is located on both sides of the Strait of Magellan. This location corresponds to that of most continental Antarctica , but the contours are reminiscent of the Australian continent, as the vegetation (trees) drawn on this earth. It remains to understand how Johann Schner and other European geographers of the early sixteenth century they have knowledge of the existence of the Terra Australis? Under the assumptions of Gavin Menzies , a large Chinese fleet commanded by Zheng He , had approached the Australian coast in the early fifteenth century. This hypothesis Chinese circumnavigation would be the basis of geographical knowledge transmitted by the Chinese themselves. The global circumnavigation was issued by the Chinese since the XIII century and known travelers and Arab traders and European, as Marco Polo and John Mandeville.
In 1570 , Abraham Ortelius painted a world map representing a Terra Australis to acquire those edges of Antarctica and those of Australia.
In 1583 , Jacques de Vau de Claye realized a globe representing a "AUSTRALlA Earth" combines both the Australia with the Antarctic.
In 1587 , the "Terra Australis" is suggested in the vast continent below the world map drawn by Mercator Rumold according to a map of his father Gerardus Mercator. The geographic boundaries of this vast continent contains data for the Antarctic related to those of Australia.
In 1605 , the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernndez de Quirs organizing an expedition starting from Peru to take possession of the Terra Australis on behalf of the Spanish crown. He thought he had found the continent landing on an island and named it "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. " In the mid- seventeenth century , the New Zealand , first observed by a European ( Abel Tasman ) in 1642 , was considered part of this continent, like the Australian.
In 1627 , Johannes Kepler carries a globe in his book "Tabulae Rudolphinae. A "Terra australis incognita" between Antarctica and Australia appeared in the southern hemisphere.
The idea of Terra Australis was finally corrected by Matthew Flinders and James Cook in the late eighteenth century. Cook was indeed a tour of New Zealand, showing that it could not be part of a continent. In his second voyage, he sailed around the Earth at high southern latitudes, sometimes even crossing the polar circle, showing that if there was the possibility of such a southern continent, it should be located in polar regions and that there could be expansion in temperate regions, as had been previously imagined.
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| Geological evolution future | Pangea ultimate Amasia | ||||
| Submerged continents | Zealandia Kerguelen Plateau Mascarene Plateau Sahul Sunda | ||||
| Imaginary continents | Atlantis Hyperborea Lemuria Kumari Kandam Mu Terra Australis | ||||
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