Bouvet Island 247 years after its discovery. The Norwegian Polar Institute established a research station, made of shipping containers, at Nyrøysa in 1996. On 23 February 2006, the island experienced a magnitude 6.2 earthquake whose epicentre was about away, weakening the station's foundation and causing it to be blown to sea during a winter storm. In 2014, a new research station was sent from Tromsø in Norway, via Cape Town, to Bouvet. The new station is designed to house six people for periods of two to four months. In the mid-1980s, Bouvetøya, Jan Mayen, and Svalbard were considered as locations for the
South American–Antarctic Ridge in the Mid- to Late Jurassic in what is today the Mozambique Basin east of Africa, whereas the South American and African plates started to brake apart during the Early Cretaceous. Between these events neither the Mid-Atlantic Ridge nor the Bouvet Triple Junction existed and the SAAR formed a continuous ridge together with the Southwest Indian Ridge. Around 106 Ma the eastern end of the Falkland Plateau separated from the Agulhas Bank, opening the South Atlantic which, however, remained an enclosed basin north of the Falkland Plateau until 85–83 Ma. Around 97 Ma the Northeast Georgia Rise (today north of