The Russians' Findings

THE RUSSIANS continued

The aim and results of the expedition, which took place in the early part of 1974, were summarized by M. Barinov, and appeared in the Soviet publication ZNANIE-SILA, Number 8, in 1979, at the time that numerous articles about the find appeared in the World Press.

"The purpose of the expedition was to study the
sandbanks in the shallow waters of the Mediterranean
Sea and of the Atlantic Ocean, not far from northwest
Africa. On board the ship, as part of the team, were
geologists and biologists. The origin, structure and
population of the sandbanks, the peaks of underwater
mountains and of the shallows comprised the main
scientific interest of the specialists. In the team there
was also a researcher from the USSR Institute of
Oceanography, Vladimir Ivanovich Marakuyev, who
was a specialist in underwater photography."

Whenever the research ship was within the desired coordinates for shots of the
bottom,

"........lighting equipment and special cameras were
lowered to a depth of about three and a half meters
above the bottom, after which the lights were switched
on and a series of photographs were taken, using a
simple automatic device. Each series took about an
hour to an hour and a half to complete. At the same
time, other members of the expedition carried out ex-
periments and a series of tests, with the aid of other
apparatus. The water in the Atlantic near Gibraltar
was exceptionally clear and the work of the expedition
depended only on the weather. During the winter storms,
when the ship started to roll from side to side, work
had to be discontinued and sometimes shelter had to
be sought."

In light of subsequent revelations,it should be pointed out that the researchers and crew had other purposes in mind than searching for remains of Atlantis, although what they found may prove to be the first photographs ever taken of sunken ruins on the Lost Continent.

The ACADEMICIAN PETROWSKY began its underwater camera survey of the Horseshoe archipelago about 300 miles west of Gibraltar in January 1974. A large
number of photographs were taken of the bottom hundreds of feet under water, in approximately the same area where Captain Robson's mysterious island appeared and then vanished. This underwater chain of islands has been described in THE
ATLANTIC FLOOR, by Heezen, Thorpe, Young:

"....an important group of underwater mountains
arranged in a horseshoe. Some of them, such as the
underwater mountains Ampere and Josephine, rise to
a depth of less than 100 fathoms....Photographs taken
of the surface of these mountains show cliffs, traces
of ripples and isolated living corals. The underwater
mountains of the northern half of the Horsehoes, which
have not yet been properly studied, stretch from west
to east. The southern half of the group apparently
resembles volcanic cones, while for the northern half,
tectonic changes played an important role."