Geoscientists have claimed that they have found an entire ocean, which was ruined 50 to 20 million years back when its sea floor dropped some 1,100 km into the ground between Australia and New Zealand.

The researchers said that the event that actuated this change was of cataclysmic proportions.

With the help of a computer model, an international group of scientists rebuilt the tragedy that occurred when the tectonic plate located beneath the ocean's basin sank into Earth’s mantle, one of the deepest levels ever achieved by a single subduction process in the past.

Hence, where the connection once stood, a chain of volcanic islands appeared on the surface.

Geoscientists said that the chain of volcanic islands formed a geographical link between New Caledonia and New Zealand.

In a varsity release, group leader Wouter Schellart of Monash University said, “In our latest research we show for the first time evidence for such a connection by combining reconstructions of tectonic plates that cover the Earth's surface with seismic tomography, a technique that looks deep into Earth's interior.”

“We are able to say the ocean basin was approximately 4 km deep and so contained 4 km of water, while the tectonic plate (which includes the ocean floor) that underlies the 4 km of water was on average 70 km thick.”

“The ocean basin was originally some 2500 km by 700 km in lateral extent, so this means that the plate of 2,500 km by 700 km by 70 km sank (subducted) into the Earth's interior. (And) the discovery means there was a geographical connection between New Caledonia and New Zealand between 50 and 20 million years ago by a long chain of volcanic islands,” Schellart added.

The results of the study appeared in the newest edition of the 'Earth and Planetary Science Letters' journal.