THE OCEANOGRAPHIC EXPEDITIONS
In 1948 Dr. Ewing, one of the bitter opponents of Atlantis, sailed up and down the Mid-Atlantic Ridge during the Woods Hole Oceanographic Expeditions to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Numerous samples of tremolite asbestos were brought up. Ewing made this significant comment: "Such rock is generally considered typical of continents and not of ocean basins." (Ewing, 1948) Important also was the discovery of "beachlike terraces" beneath two miles of ocean water. Ewing cautiously observed: "It is, of course, extremely radical speculation to identify these level stretches more than two miles below the sea surface as former beaches. Such a theory would require the obvious but almost incredible conclusion that the land has subsided two miles or else the sea has risen by that amount" (Ewing, 1948). However, subsequent expeditions only strengthened the "incredible".
According to Ewing, long flat stretches were detected 2 to 20 miles wide and hundreds of miles long. These beach-like areas were always covered with thick sediments, indicating a long period of deposition, although occasionally separated by mountainous "higher ground" exhibiting no such sediments. (The Central Highland of the Ridge occasionally approaches four-fifths of a mile from the sea surface.) Ewing observed that deep ocean basins never have thick sediments--which are the result of surf action and river deposition--it is actually shorelines that display thick sediments. More evidence of just how recently such a landmass existed turned up during an expedition the following year.
The follow-up expedition in 1949 turned up numerous core samples from these terraces. These cores contained two different strata of beach sand: the older estimated to be 225,000-325,000 years of age, and the younger 20,000-100,000 years old (Ewing, 1949). Another significant fact is that the deposits were found to be well-sorted by surf action into the usual pattern of shoreline beaches familiar to geologists (Miller & Scholten, 1966). His conclusion was that: "Sometime in the distant past this sand found deep beneath the ocean must have been located on a beach, at or near the surface of the sea" (Ewing, 1949).
During this second Woods Hole Mid-Atlantic Ridge Expedition Dr. Ewing once again dredged up continental type rocks. Sample after sample containing large masses of sial were brought up all along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It became obvious that granite and sedimentary rocks "which originally must have been part of a continent" were abundant (Ewing, 1949). Dr. Bruce Heezen observed that this type of rock indicates "possible sunken land masses".
Geologists have short memories when it comes to Atlantis. A geologist reviewed the Woods Hole expeditions of 1948-1949 barely ten years later and wrote a report on the findings (Cifelli, 1970). I read his report, word for word and cover to cover: not a word was written concerning the numerous findings of continental material (sial) along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Dr. Ewing was puzzled, even dismayed, by these particular discoveries; yet he was honest enough to report them. Why were these astounding facts not included in Richard Cifelli's review? Can professional geologists be this one-sided?
Still another oceanographic expedition, Swedish Deep-Sea Expedition of 1947-1948, yielded core samples containing sand from the Romache Deep along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Dr. Otto Mellis did not publish these findings until ten years later (Mellis, 1958). Other geologists have guardedly admitted that the Azore Islands (Central Atlantic) are composed chiefly of continental material, some even conceding that there might be enough continental material (sial) in the mid-Atlantic to make up a landmass the size of Spain (de Camp, 1970). This is not much smaller than the size I have been proposing for the island of Atlantis.
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