Asia's lost continent, known as 'OK' , shaped ancient China, scientist claims

An ancient continent collided with East Asia and then, like the legendary island of Atlantis, disappeared into the ocean, according to a Chinese scientist.

The collision created a mountain range up to 500 kilometres wide and more than 4,000 metres high along what is now coastal southern and eastern China. It also dramatically reshaped the landscape of Taiwan and other East Asian regions such as Japan.

But the continent was probably not Atlantis - the event happened about 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs still walked on the planet.

Writing in a leading earth sciences journal, Professor Yang Yongtai said the lost continent now lies below the Sea of Okhotsk in northeast Asia. It is known as the Okhotomorsk continental block, or simply "OK" to geologists.

A common belief in the field of tectonics - which concerns large-scale processes that affect the structure of the earth's crust - is that to the east of Asia there has never been anything but water. The expanding plate of the youthful Pacific had been constantly nudging the ancient plate of Eurasia to create the rugged landscape in East Asia, including the coastal mountains in China and volcanoes in Japan.