00:35 Rocks Point to Very Different Image of Earth Rocks are giving researchers a glimpse into Earth’s past. What it looked like might shock you!

At a Glance Researchers found ancient rocks in Australia that are similar to rocks found in Canada today.

The stones suggest the two countries were once neighbors on the supercontinent Nuna.

Scientists say the supercontinent existed 1.7 billion years ago.

Rocks discovered in Australia suggest the Land Down Under and North America were once neighbors billions of years ago, according to a recent study.

Researchers from Curtin University found the rocks in the Georgetown area of Queensland and noticed they bore striking similarities to stones discovered in Canada today , according to the study. They believe the stones imply the two countries were part of the supercontinent Nuna.

“Our research shows that about 1.7 billion years ago, Georgetown rocks were deposited into a shallow sea when the region was part of North America ,” study co-author and Curtin University School of Earth and Planetary Sciences Ph.D. student Adam Nordsvan said in a release on the findings. “Georgetown then broke away from North America and collided with the Mount Isa region of northern Australia around 100 million years later.”

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When Nuna broke apart some 300 million years later, the Georgetown area stayed in place and became a permanent fixture in Australia, states the release.

Nordsvan told the Sydney Morning Herald that researchers had proposed the connection between the two continents for years, but the evidence was very vague.

<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/w/1516677572733.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/w/1516677572733.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/w/1516677572733.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > The photo above shows a view of sedimentary rocks in the Georgetown area of Queensland, Australia. Researchers have found that roughly 1.7 billion years ago, Georgetown rocks were deposited into a shallow sea when the region was part of North America. (Courtesy of Curtin University) (Courtesy of Curtin University)

"This Georgetown evidence is very strong evidence to say this connection during this period was real," he added.

The existence of Nuna, sometimes referred to as Columbia, was first proposed by researchers in 2002 , according to Live Science.

The scientists also discovered evidence of a chain of mountains being built in Georgetown and Mount Isa after Georgetown collided with Australia, states the release.

“Ongoing research by our team shows that this mountain belt, in contrast to the Himalayas, would not have been very high, suggesting the final continental assembling process that led to the formation of the supercontinent Nuna was not a hard collision like India’s recent collision with Asia,” study co-author and Curtin University professor Zheng-Xiang Li said in the release.

The researchers say their discoveries are key to understanding how Nuna may have formed.

"One of the aims of this project is to piece together what was happening in Australia at that period," Nordsvan told the Sydney Morning Herald. "There's some interesting work still to come but this find is very nice. It's a very good result."