the idea of a "Great Asiatic Bank", based in part on common features of mammals found in Java, Borneo and Sumatra.

Explorers and scientists began measuring and mapping the seas of Southeast Asia in the 1870s, primarily using depth sounding. In 1921 Gustaaf Molengraaff, a Dutch geologist, postulated that the nearly uniform sea depths of the shelf indicated an ancient peneplain that was the result of repeated