The Great Islands Under The Sea

THE GREAT ISLANDS UNDER THE SEA continued

In recent years a number of rock samples collected by expeditions in the
course of their normal research have added fuel to the Termier contro-
versy. Dr. Maria Klenova, of the Soviet Academy of Science, after exa-
mination of rocks dredged up from a depth of 6600 feet on an expedition
in the same general area, north of the Azores, expressed her opinion that
the rocks had been formed at atmospheric pressure approximately 15,000
years ago.

Near the north coast of South America, granitic rocks were brought up by a
a Duke University expedition in 1969 by dredging along an underwater bridge
running from Venezuela to the Virgin Islands. Dr. Bruce Heezen, a leading
U.S. Oceanographer, assessed the find: "Up to now, geologists generally
believed that light granitic or acid igneous rocks are confined to the conti-
nents and that the crust of the Earth beneath the sea is composed of hea-
vier, dark-colored basaltic rock....Thus, the occurrence of light-colored gra-
nitic rocks may support an old theory that a continent formerly existed in the
region of the eastern Caribbean and that these rocks may represent the core
of a subsided lost continent."