45-million-year-old tropical island found off Brazil: Photos and video

In 2018, a team of Brazilian and British scientists explored the seabed around a volcanic plateau known as the Rio Grande Rise.

Then the scientists discovered something that seemed incredibly strange: the stones on the seabed looked like they belonged to the land, Live Science writes.

During the study, scientists used a remotely operated underwater vehicle to dive at a depth of about 650 meters below the ocean surface.

Then the scientists' attention was drawn to unusual layers of red clay. According to study co-author Prof. Bramley Murton, a marine geologist at the National Oceanography Center in Southampton, he and his colleagues discovered that these marine sediments actually looked like tropical soils.

In the recent study, the team continued their previous work and focused on studying the characteristic mineral composition of the clay, which could only have formed as a result of weathering outdoors in tropical heat and humidity. Scientists now believe that this area of the ocean, located 1,200 kilometres off the coast of Brazil, was once an island.

According to the study's co-author, Luigi Jovane, a marine geologist at the University of São Paulo, the results of this research are "outstanding." In fact, the red clay is convincing evidence that this place was once an island.

As TravelWise reported, an island in Finland wants to become the world's first no-phones tourist zone..