Re: Atlantis found on a Google photograph.

Here is the file:

Atlantis Found on a Google Photograph.

Note to the reader: This paper is intended to be read on Internet-connected computer.

The story of Atlantis is one of the biggest mysteries, confronting human civilization since the emerging of the story in ancient Greece. If Atlantis ever existed, the big question is if we can see the island or whatever remained from it, after a violent earthquake broke it up and sank it. It turns out that, thanks to technology presented on the Internet by companies like Google, now everybody can see for himself. Just find on the Internet the Google map of Bahamas in Caribbean. Then switch the viewing mode from “Map” to “Satellite” and back. On the satellite photograph, east of Florida and north of Cuba, you will see what we call here the Submerged Island, broken in two by a horizontal trench about 70Km wide. In this article we will refer to the two parts as the Northern Island and the Southern Island. The Southern Island is further cracked by two vertical trenches along the coast of the current Big Bahamas Islands. The western trench is shallow and about 10 to 15Km. wide. The right trench however is massive and about 50Km wide. It starts at the Southern Island and crosses the entire Atlantic Ocean to the North. In the south-east direction from the Southern Island one can find a lot of bits and peaces of the island all the way to the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Submerged Island is located on the southern edge of the North American tectonic plate, exactly where it meets the Caribbean and the South American plates. It looks like, the Submerged Island was stretched in the south-east direction, and this is what broke and sunk it, in addition to the rising sea waters at the end of the last Ice Age.

On the west end of the Northern Island is noticeable a circular formation with diameter of about 50Km, which looks like a geological in its origin. On the North-west tip of the Southern Island however is noticeable a very puzzling circular formation of small hills. The diameter of the structure is about 50Km. If you zoom in, you can notice that the circle is stretched to the east by about 10Km. If compensate for the stretching of the Southern Island, the structure becomes a perfect circle with diameter of about 50Km. In the middle of this circle one can identify another small hill with irregular shape and size of about 5Km. On the west-most rim of the circle and as a part of it, just across Miami, are located the Bimini islands, where in 1968 was discovered the Bimini wall, known also as the Bimini road, a strange megalithic structure, built of massive stones and suggesting a man-made origin. Actual pictures are available all over the internet.

Here is a topographic map of the same region from the National Geographic Data Center. Zoom in this map and you will clearly see that all of the current Bahamas islands are just the visible tips of the submerged broken island. If the Submerged Island is reconstructed to its original form, then it fits perfectly well Plato’s description in terms of size and location.

Here is a topographic map of the entire Atlantic Ocean floor, provided by the Scripts Institution of Oceanography of UCSD. On this map is clearly visible that in the Atlantic Ocean doesn’t exist any submerged structure, matching Plato’s island of Atlantis, except in the Caribbean.

Compact article on Atlantis can be found in the Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia. In short, Plato’s account is the first source of information about Atlantis. It is presented in his dialogs Critias and Timaeus, dated circa 360 BC. According to Plato, this is not a first-hand account, but rather information verbally transmitted during about two hundred years period between six people of different generations. Plato received the information from the Greek politician Critias, who in turn got it, when he was a child, from his grandfather also named Critias, son of Dropides. Dropides got the story from an Athenian lawyer Solon, who in turn got it from Egyptian priest, while traveling there in the 6^th century BC. The priest (from the Egyptian city of Sais) translated the story in Greek from Egyptian written source.

Plato’s account describes Atlantis as an elongated island, comprising mostly mountains in the northern portions and along the shore, raising sheer from the see and slopping to the south. Located in the Atlantic Ocean, outside of the Pillars of Hercules (commonly assumed to be the Strait of Gibraltar); the island of Atlantis was broken up and sank by a violent earthquake at about 9,360 BC. Here is the physical description of the island from the Diskin Clay’s translation of Critias in “Plato complete works”, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997.

“The entire country was very high and … rose sheer from the sea. The entire plain that surrounded the capital was itself surrounded by a ring of mountains that sloped down as far as the sea. The plain was smooth and level and entirely rectangular. On its long sides it extended for three thousand stades (about 600Km) and, as measured from the sea, it was over two thousand stades (about 400Km) across. The slope of the island was to the south and it was protected from the northerly winds.” (Italics added)

The general impression from Plato’s account is that Atlantis was just one (the dominant) of the several world powers, competing with each other for world dominance at that time. Another one was the pre-historic Athenian kingdom, which controlled the eastern part of Mediterranean. Atlantis and the pre-historic Athenian kingdom where destroyed catastrophically at about the same time by natural events.

Poseidon’s citadel on the island of Atlantis is described in the beginning of Critias dialog. It is built at about 10Km from the shore, on a flat hill in the center of a small plane. The distance of the flat hill from the central plane of the island is specified to be about 10Km (the translated text here is not very clear). On the top of this hill Poseidon built his Acropolis with his royal palace, and surrounded it with three circular channels. The largest channel was about 600m wide, surrounding a dry land circle with equal width. Inside was a second channel, about 400m wide and dry land circle in it with equal width. The smallest, the third, channel was about 200m wide and surrounded the central artificial island, with diameter of about one kilometer. The entire enclosure of Poseidon was connected from the largest circular channel to the sea with another channel, about 10Km in length, and surrounded by a massive stone wall, as follows,

“Starting at the sea they excavated a canal three plethora in with, one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stades (about 10Km) in length up to the outermost sea ring…. Now, once you had crossed over the three rings of water, you would come to a circuit wall that began at the sea and surrounded the greatest of the land rings (may be the greatest of the circular channels?) on all sides at a uniform distance of fifty stades (about 10Km) from the greatest land ring (channel?) and the harbor.” (Diskin Clay’s translation of Critias in “Plato complete works”, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997.). Italics added.

It follows, that the outside diameter of the largest circular channel equals to 5.4Km. When consider the length of the channel, connecting the largest circular channel to the ocean, the diameter of the wall totals to 25.400Km.

Can we see the Poseidon’s citadel? As far as this article is about Atlantis, I can not resist the temptation to introduce one more speculation on the issue, and identify the circular feature on the north-vest tip of the Southern Island as the Poseidon’s citadel. On the Google photograph one can see that the perimeter of the formation is built of small hills (or may be a wall?), surrounding a small hill in the middle (or maybe the royal Acropolis of Poseidon?). Such a perfectly symmetric structure can be created only by some kind of massive natural explosion, or artificially. However, if it is a result of natural explosion, how come that the resulting circle is precisely tangent to the coast of the Northern Island at Bimini? The coast there is a sheer cliff and for the explosion is much more natural to stop short or overrun the cliff.  If this formation is a wall indeed, then is it the wall surrounding the Poseidon’s citadel, described by Plato? Also, is the Bimini-wall, if it is artificial in its origin, a part of this wall, or a part of the harbor, connected to the Poseidon’s enclosure via channel? The major problem with this speculation is that the diameter of the wall, surrounding the Poseidon enclosure, computed from the specifications in Plato’s account is less than 30Km and not 50Km what we see on the Google photograph.

The only chance for this speculation to survive is if Plato’s account is not precise about the distance of the outside wall to the largest circular channel, and the matching this distance length of the channel connecting it to the sea. After all, Plato’s account is transmitted verbally between six people from different generations during about two hundred years, before being written down by Plato again. The time span of any verbal transmission is very critical for the accuracy of the information. Another problem is that each person in the chain of people basically transmits only his understanding of the story to the next person. So, somebody in the chain can subconsciously distort, fill in the gaps, or “fix” some details in the story, according to his own understanding. On the other hand, the needed correction for the distance of the wall from the enclosure is pretty big, twice as big. This speculation, like any other speculation, can prove to be valuable, because it has the potential to generate and focus additional research effort.

Here are some additional considerations.

1.      The last Ice Age, after holding the earth in its grip for about 110,000 years, ended abruptly at about 9,000 BC. At about 8,500 BC the current Warm Age of the climate was finally established. This is a scientific fact, well documented by many researchers. It is natural to assume that the melting of the ice during the conversion period, directly or indirectly, caused massive floods around the world. Also, the re-distribution of the weight of melted ice can create stress in the Earth’s crest. The accumulation of stress in the crest, in turn can trigger catastrophic earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and other sadden geological events around the world.

2.      Flood legends are integral and important part of many cultures around the world. Typically the event of a massive flood is considered as the starting point of the current human civilization. To mention some of them,

·         Sumerian flood story and it’s hero Ziusudra;

·         Babylonian flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh;

·         Acadian Atrahasis Epic;

·         Biblical flood story in the Genesis and it’s hero Noah;

·         Critias’ account in Plato’s dialog Timaeus is about not one but three floods in Mediterranean and Atlantis, all before 9000 BC;

·         Chinese flood story and it’s hero Great Yu who made the earth habitable again;

·         Indian flood story and it’s hero Manu;

·         American (Aztec, Inca, and Maya) flood stories, etc. around the world.

In all of these legends the story is basically the same, some deity (the Nature?) destroys the human population via flood of biblical proportions, and then a hero restores the human habitat and repopulates the earth. It is very tempting to assume that the rapid warming of the climate at the end of the last Ice Age (the transition period lasted from about 10,000 to 9,000 BC) caused massive floods around the world at about the same time. The exact mechanism of the flooding in every part of the world and the exact timing can be different, but the severity of the event remains enormous and proportional to the scale of the common cause, the global climate warming.

3.      Ocean level rouses by 130m during the transition from the last Ice Age to the current Warm Age. The current level of the world oceans stabilized at about 8,000 years ago. Because this process was very steady and lasted for about 10,000 years we can eliminate its immediate role in the seemingly catastrophic sinking of Atlantis.

4.      The stress of the earth’s crest however, resulting from the mass re-distribution caused by the melting of the ice during the 10,000 years long transition period can be significant. This stress, accumulated gradually, can trigger catastrophic geological events like earthquakes and volcano eruptions mainly along the tectonic plates, during the entire conversion period. Here we evaluate this stress by computing the change in the elevation of the ocean floor and the continents, as follows,

·         Assuming that the melting of the ice increased the level of the oceans by 130m;

·         Assuming the surface of the world oceans to be 361,000,000Km²;

·         Then the rest should be the surface of all continents at about 170,000,000Km²;

·         Assuming that the basalt magma (SiMa) is 2.8 times denser then the water;

·         Assuming that during the Ice Age the ice sheet covered 1/3 of the continents;

·         It follows, that the ocean floor around the world sunk by 130/2.8=46 meters;

·         It follows also, that after the melting of the ice, the continents in high latitudes rose by 3*361,000,000*130/(170,000,000*2.8)=296 meters.

This calculation is very basic, but still points to significant stress on the Earths crest, caused by the melting of the ice sheets. In high latitudes the relative change between the elevations of the continents end the bottom of the ocean can exceed 300 meters. In low latitudes, where no continental ice sheet was formed, the change in the relative elevation for continents can still be about 50 meters. So, the stress on the Earths crest was not only along the coastal lines of the continents but in the continents itself with the change of the latitude.

5.      In his book “Sacred Science”, Paris 1961, Schwaller de Lubicz noticed possible water erosion on the body of the Sphinx. Later John Anthony West provided very serious arguments that the vertical weathering patterns on the Sphinx and its enclosure are caused by water indeed. The climate in Egypt now is extremely dry, but before the current Warm Age, before about 9000 years ago it was moderate and rainy. So, according to this theory, the Creation of the Sphinx is estimated at about 10,500 BC;

6.      On the Cuban shelf, west of the island, about 600m to 700m under the water, a Cuban expedition recorded a sonar image of abnormalities, which they characterize as a sunken city with seemingly artificial origin. The discoverers attribute the remains to the lost civilization of Atlantis. On May 28 2002, National Geographic News published the report Cuba’s Sunken City on the story;

7.      If Atlantis really existed in Caribbean, then the Critias’ account given in Plato’s Timaeus dialog will turn out to be the first and the oldest known description of the American continent from more then 2500 years ago, and long before Columbus discovered it:

“This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbor, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent.” 

8.      Edgar Cayce, the famous American psychic, claims that the remains of the island of Atlantis are located in the Caribbean. The destruction of Atlantis was caused by breaking of the Island and sinking it in three major geological events. The last and final destruction happened at about 10,000 BC. (It is interesting to notice, that in Timaeus, Critias also claims three major catastrophes, leading to the final destruction of Atlantis, circa 9360 BC.) Before the final catastrophe many Atlanteans escaped to Egypt and other Mediterranean countries and to the Americas, as well. In 1940 in his reading 958-3, Cayce predicted that part of Atlantis will rise in 1968 or 1969. It is not clear what exactly he meant by the word rise, but curiously enough, in 1968 just beneath the waters north of the North Bimini island was discovered the Bimini-wall. Cayce also predicted that under the front paws of the Sphinx will be discovered a hidden chamber with records, left from the Atlantean civilization. Well, the fulfillment of this prediction is still pending.

The quest for Atlantis is far from over. Lots of related theories, accounts and speculations are available. What is needed now is money to mount a massive and sharply focused research on the issue, targeted for producing tangible evidence in one way or the other.

December 4, 2006

 

----- Original Message ----
From: John Meyer <john.l.meyergmail.com&gt;
To: google-earthgooglegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 4:24:17 PM
Subject: Re: Atlantis found on a Google photograph.

Boris Spasov wrote:
>; Hi Terrance,
>
> ; 
>;
> The file in in MS Word format and contains a lots of hyperlinks. So, I
> am not sure it will be usefull if I just paste it in the E-mail. I am
> attaching it again for you, but if you have problems to open it, I will
> try to cut and paste it for you.
>
> ; 
>; Regards,
&gt;
> Boris Spasov.



Boris, I think most of us can figure out what to put in the google
earth, so just paste the text in.