*Lost World Discovered Under Atlantic – Atlantis?

[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea]

*Lost World Discovered Under Atlantic – Atlantis?

A statement in the World News today (12.07.2011) highlights the discovery by a research team at the University of Cambridge of  an ancient lost world deep below the Atlantic Ocean, off the north coast of Scotland, UK.

IS THIS THE EVIDENCE THAT WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, OR ARE WE CLUTCHING AT STRAWS AGAIN?

(See comment 1 below – This new evidence has nothing to do with Atlantis except that it affirms the possibility that a large area of land can sink into, or rise from, the ocean bed, but for different reasons.)

From the Daily Mail:
Lost world: Ancient submerged landscape of mountains and riverbeds found on the Atlantic seabed

    * Lost terrain is 56million years old
    * It is located in the North Atlantic west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands

An ancient landscape long ago submerged beneath the North Atlantic Ocean has been discovered by scientists.

Researchers found the 56million-year-old lost terrain, which they have likened to the mythical lost city of Atlantis, by analysing data collected for oil companies using an advanced echo-sounding technique.

The 1.2mile-deep landscape is located in the North Atlantic west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands and has peaks that once belonged to mountains and eight major rivers.

[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea]

[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea]

Scientists were able to construct this 3D image of the landscape submerged beneath the North Atlantic Ocean by measuring the echoes made by underwater sound waves as they hit different land types

It would once have risen up to 0.6miles above sea level and probably joined up with what is now Scotland, and may even have stretched as far as Norway, the scientists said.

Researcher Nicky White, from University of Cambridge, said: ‘It looks for all the world like a map of a bit of a country onshore.

‘It is like an ancient fossil landscape preserved 1.2miles beneath the seabed.’

The discovery came from data gathered by a seismic contracting company.

A hi-tech echo-sounding technique was deployed that involved releasing high-pressured air underwater – this produced sound waves that travelled through sediment on the ocean floor.

An echo would bounce back each time these waves happened upon a change in the terrain through which they were travelling.

[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea]

[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea]

How the North Atlantic would have looked around 56million years ago. Points a, b and c are where scientists think plume centres were located. The dotted line represents the continental break-up

This echo was then picked up by a microphone being dangled deep underwater from a ship travelling on the ocean’s surface.

Scientists were then able to construct a 3D image of the terrain below, at which point they realised they had evidence of a submerged landscape.

Evidence of land-dwelling life was gathered by core samples taken from the rock beneath the ocean – these revealed pollen and coal.

Elsewhere, the Cambridge scientists found tiny fossils, proving the landscape was once a marine environment.

They believe that the landscape rose up and subsided within 2.5million years due to the Icelandic Plume – an upwelling of material through Earth’s mantle beneath the North Atlantic Ocean.

This functions by carrying hot magma from deep within Earth to just below the surface, where it ripples outwards.

Dr White said the landscape was probably swept beneath the Atlantic during this magma surge.

Indeed, he claims to have found two more recent underwater landscapes since, both caused by the same phenomenon.

The research is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2013559/Ancient-subm…

[jwilson]

One of the big problems (dampening the excitement about this discovery) is that it is "56 million years old", but...

I'm a retired nuclear engineer, and the following are some of the problems I have with scientific dating methods:
1.  The universe was recently updated from 15 billion years old to 13 billion (what's 2 billion years amongst friends?)
2.  The scientist who first calculated the size of the universe had one equation with two unknowns (making the equation unsolvable).  So he assumed one of the unknowns (that the star was receding from the earth at almost the speed of light).  This gave him the size of the universe.  This was wildly acclaimed by scientists, but the original scientist, Dr. Arp, retracted his result because he realized his assumption was subjective.  He got fired!
3.  The calculation for the age of this 'sunken land' presumes that the Earth is old (therefore we can discard all decay chains of short-lived elements), and there is no fusion or fission going on in the Earth's core (otherwise, most radioactive age dating clocks would be reset)
4.  The two oldest dates of the Earth are 200 million and 4.5 billion.  The 4.5 billion year age is based upon the theory that our entire crust has been recycled (all of the current crust is too young).  Very small portions of our crust have tiny zircons in them which have been dated.  Only one zircon came out with 4.5 million year old date, and that zircon failed one of the two dating methods used.  The remainder of the zircons confirmed a younger date.  In violation of all principles of statistics and data handling, the 4.5 billion year old date was selected.  Another group using similar methods came up with 8 billion years, which they reluctantly discarded as too incredible to believe!  Too bad our '4.5-billion-year-old-scientists' weren't as reluctant

Our scientists don't tell you about all these problems.  After all, they want you to like them and believe them.

[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea]

Nicely worded answer, JWilson. I think there is good evidence for the 4.5 billion year date. They arrived at that date through radiometric dating of certain rocks on the earth. I do think that the 56 million years mentioned in the article has some wiggle room, though. It could be a break-up of Pangea, but, as I understand it, they are simply estimating the age by the depth it is in the water.

What if a cataclysm that they didn't account for sunk it in more recent times?  It might explain why these geological features are still mostly intact, millions of years later.  Maybe it wasn't actually millions of years, but in a more recent time frame.

[jwilson]

"20,000 Leagues" responded:  "I think there is good evidence for the 4.5 billion year date. They arrived at that date through radiometric dating of certain rocks on the earth."

The 'good evidence' was one sample out of 140 zircons came up with the 4.5 billion year date.  That's 139 "no's" to one "yes". 

I feel like I have to apologize for the following reference that gives the whole story because it comes from a Christian source:
http://creation.com/flaws-in-dating-the-earth-as-ancient.  It's funny... the US legal system believes our testimony is more reliable if we pledge with our hand upon a Bible.  But not in the arena a science.

However, dissenting views are rare and you have to take them where you can find them.  Science does not like dissent when if shakes the whole structure.  The author Thomas Kuhn, who created a whole new branch of science recognizing terms like 'paradigm shift', the errors of tradition-bound education, and assumptions treated as facts , was forced to recant before he died.  Dr. Halton Arp, the first to calculate the size of the universe and then reject that same calculation, was fired.  I could give many more examples... these should suffice to show the trend.  I was fired twice from a government laboratory for what I wrote in scientific papers.  So you can see, those wanting to be gainfully employed have to be careful what they write about in science.

[20,000 Leagues Under the Sea]

jwilson,

I'm actually a bit surprised at your answer.

It's funny... the US legal system believes our testimony is more reliable if we pledge with our hand upon a Bible.  But not in the arena a science.

Well, the reason is obvious.  The Bible is a complex blend of mythology, parables and moral lessons, it is not meant to be a history book. There may be some history in it, but it isn't meant to be taken literally, except as a collection of lessons to guide one's faith.

Science, on the other hand, is based on known facts, it change as those facts change (sometimes slowly).  It isn't perfect, and sometimes the academia is resistant to change, but there is far less dogma in it than religion, that is basically all dogma.  Religion holds onto ideas long after they have been proven to be false. The 6,000 year old earth is just one of them.

The 'good evidence' was one sample out of 140 zircons came up with the 4.5 billion year date.  That's 139 "no's" to one "yes". 

I did some checking and I don't accept your source on this. Creationist websites are agenda-driven and aren't really interested in the facts. Even if it was true, the rationale is flawed, the rock still supposedly dated to 4.5 billion years. 

Here is a far more detailed and science based link on how we know the age of the earth:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

The answer is far more complex than a dating of the rocks, so I was in error myself earlier when I mentioned it is simply about dating the rocks.
I don't understand why some people are so interested in sticking with the young earth theory other than it conflicts with their faith. The Bible does say a lot of things in it that have been proven to be false or that we no longer believe in anymore.  The young earth theory, and the idea of a global flood are just two of them.