Lewis Ashwal and his team at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa have determined that an ancient continent that was once between India and Madagascar is now scattered at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Among their first clues during the research process: Parts of the Indian Ocean have stronger gravitational fields than others and zircon crystals found on the island nation of Mauritius that are as much as 3 billion years old. The continent, dubbed Mauritia, was allegedly about a quarter of the size of Madagascar up until about 85 million years ago. As India and Madagascar began to move apart, Mauritia began to stretch and break.