Science news this week: False memories and swallowed seas

This week in science news we discovered a massive water reservoir hidden beneath the ocean floor, spotted the brain’s ‘tell’ for false memories, and raised a margarita to the late Jimmy Buffett — in the shape of a tiny sea snail. 

The geological history of Earth is an ever-evolving story, with the tectonic plates that form the planet’s crust slowly shifting with the passage of time. One place where the story has changed this week is the South Pacific, where the hidden continent of Zealandia was fully mapped, scientists found the ghost of ancient mega-plate that disappeared 20 million years ago, and we discovered a sea’s worth of water locked beneath the Pacific seafloor. The region was also home to one of the most violent eruptions in the last 5,000 years, which flung volcanic glass as far as Antarctica.