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ATLANTIS & the Atlantic Ocean

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dhill757
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« Reply #210 on: December 27, 2008, 09:40:34 pm »



Hydrographic map of Azore Plateau and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
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« Reply #211 on: December 27, 2008, 09:41:07 pm »

PLATE TECTONICS

Did North America and Europe fit together so perfectly that there was no body of water in between? Evidence indicates that there was a "proto-Atlantic Ocean" even before the continents began to spread apart. This evidence was obtained during a series of core drillings by the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory's Deep-Sea Project. During this expedition it was found that sediments off the coasts of North Africa and North America differed in age some 45 million years. Had the continents been joined the sediments would have been the same age (Hayes & Pimm, 1971). The nature of the samples resulted in Dr. Hayes postulating a 400-mile-wide "proto-Atlantic Ocean" extending from Newfoundland down to at least the Bermuda area.


Moreover the phenomenon known as "continental drift," which is due to the action of Plate Tectonics, is an extremely slow process. The breakup which left the Americas and Euro-Africa drifting apart began near the beginning of the Mesozoic Era some 200 million years ago. There has been sufficient room for Atlantis in the North Atlantic Ocean for the last 60 million years--and there is definitive oceanographic data to support this (Ewing, 1948).


Some biologists and zoologists have postulated the existence of a large landmass in the North Atlantic during Miocene times, 12-26 million years ago. Atlantis may have "surfaced" several times during the long geological history of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. But at the moment we are more concerned about the last 3 million years, i.e., the Pleistocene Epoch, which ended only 12,000 years ago.


Seismic activity has been somewhat concentrated near the Azore Plateau, roughly 25-30°N Latitude. (Tolstoy & Ewing, 1949) "In the final phase activity was renewed, with volcanism on the crest and faulting on the flanks . . . This last phase may have occurred as recently as the Quaternary." (Cifelli, 1970) Sediments were dated by submarine paleontology. And the Quaternary does include the Pleistocene Epoch. (Longwell, Flint & Sanders, 1969)


"Climatic catastrophes, which piled thousand of feet of ice on the higher latitudes of the continents, also covered the oceans with icebergs and ice fields at lower latitudes and chilled the ocean waters even down to the equator. Volcanic catastrophes cast rains of ash over the sea." (Pettersson, 1950) There is no question that the geological record of our planet presents "evidence of great catastrophes that have altered the face of the earth." (Ibid.) The question that pertains to our study here is when and where.


But what of the objections concerning the light granitic continental material known as sial (silicon-aluminum)? As stated above, a landmass does not have to be made of sial in order to be above ocean levels long enough to acquire vegetation and animal populations. Granted, if consisting predominately of sima (silicon-magnesium) it will be heavier and therefore unstable, but forces powerful enough to lift ocean bottoms for short periods of time (geologically speaking) certainly exist along the geologically turbulent Mid-Atlantis Ridge. The Ridge is the most active area on the face of the earth, and we will examine the evidence that a central Atlantic landmass has indeed existed several times in the geologic past.


But, in spite of what various geologists have said, there is good oceanographic data showing that much of this area along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is composed of sial, in spite of the scientific objections (Leonard, 1979). Dr. W. Maurice Ewing of Columbia University headed up several oceanographic expeditions along the famous Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
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« Reply #212 on: December 27, 2008, 09:41:35 pm »

THE OCEANOGRAPHIC EXPEDITIONS

Prof. Hans Pettersson, leader of the Swedish Albatross expeditions, which extracted hundreds of samples from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean throughout the 1930's, stated that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was mainly above water as recently as 15,000 years ago. A similar conclusion had been reached earlier by the German Gauss expedition, which sounded the Romanche Deep in 1901.


In 1936, Charles S. Piggot's famous U.S. Geological Survey of deep core soundings indicated that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge reached above the surface of the ocean 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Different sediment deposits on each side of the Ridge showed that the Ridge once separated two currents moving in opposite directions. Heavy deposits of volcanic ash on both slopes were dated at 12,000 years ago. (Piggot, 1937)


Commenting on this oceanographic study, Swedish oceanographer Hans Pettersson (1944) wrote: "The topmost of the two volcanic strata is found above the topmost glacial stratum, which indicates that this volcanic catastrophe or catastrophies occurred in postglacial times . . . It can therefore not be entirely ruled out that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the sample originated, was above sea level up to about ten thousand years ago and did not subside to its present depth until later."


Still later, after obtaining sea-bottom cores near the Romanche Deep, Pettersson stated: "One is lead to assume that the sea bottom in the Romanche Deep area must, in a remote past, have risen by at least 1000m., and then, after an interval of many thousand years, suddenly subsided to its present great depth, sinking by more than 6000m. This particular part of the Atlantic Ocean is known to have frequent volcanic and seismic disturbances." (Pettersson, 1947)


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, oceanographer with the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, observed that this type of rock indicates "possible sunken land masses". (Heezen, Tharp & Ewing, 1959)


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 Romanche 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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« Reply #213 on: December 27, 2008, 09:42:17 pm »

TESTIMONY OF SEA FAUNA AND FLORA

Strong evidence indicating the rise and fall of the seafloor more than three miles at a time are the fossilized remains of marine plants and animals. This evidence proves that it is not impossible for large areas of mid-ocean seafloor to have been elevated to the point of becoming dry land, before subsequently subsiding to depths of three miles or more. And this can happen almost over night, geological speaking.


For instance, while exploring the Wyville Thomson Ridge (between Iceland and the Orkney Islands), the Norwegian Polar Expedition (1893-1896), led by Fridtjof Nansen, found large quantities of shells and otoliths of sea animals normally inhabiting only shallow waters. They were found in the seabed at about 72°N Latitude at depths approximating one thousand meters (3300 feet), and onward to the south at depths of twenty-five hundred meters (8200 feet). (Nansen, 1900-1903)


His conclusion was that these areas of the North Atlantic must have dropped thousands of feet (almost two miles in some cases) very suddenly, otherwise the shallow-sea animals would have had time to escape to the continental shelf. This did not take place millions of years ago--the time-frame for the subsidence was determined to be not more than 12,000 years ago (i.e., the Recent Epoch).


In the early 1900s the newly built German research vessel Gauss was launched on its first expedition to study the South Atlantic seafloor. The expedition made significant discoveries to the south of our proposed location for Atlantis. Cores were obtained containing sand, granite, gneiss and chrystalline schist--all continental materials. Layer "b" also contained minerals forming hypersthenic gneiss (i.e., continental rocks). (Zhirkov, 1958)


Subsequent investigation performed by the Swedish oceanographic research vessel Albatross corroborated these earlier finds: the bottom layer included fossilized remains of benthomic foraminiferra that can only live in depths of 100 to 200 metres. Cores taken at "depths between 2000 and 4000m" (1.25 and 2.5 miles respectively) contained shallow-water globigerina ooze! The conclusion was that the area within the Romanche Deep (one of the deepest parts of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge) had first risen 1000m, then subsided a shocking 6000m--almost three and a half miles! (Pettersson, 1946)


Red-clay (a light detrital material from the continents) and calcarous ooze (calcium carbonate from the decomposed skeletons of billions of microorganisms) was deposited along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge during the Quaternary period. The report by Sclater & Tapscott (1979) states that the calcarous ooze is most predominate near the crest of the Ridge.


In 1957, Dr. Rene Malaise of the Riks Museum in Stockholm announced that a colleague, Dr. R. W. Kolbe, had found proof of the geologically recent subsidance of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Dr. Kolbe of the Swedish Museum of Natural History had been commissioned to investigate diatoms found in deep-sea cores obtained during the 1947-1948 Swedish Deep-Sea Expedition. Although the expedition included a globe-encircling study, only those cores taken from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge yielded the following: multitudinous shells of fresh-water diatoms (small lake animals) and fossilized remains of terrestrial plants (Kolbe, 1957). Let me repeat that. Land plants and fresh-water animals were found fossilized on the Atlantic Ocean bottom along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. (See also Kolbe, 1958)


Dr. Malaise theorized that parts of the Ridge must have existed as large islands up to the end of the last Ice Age or later: i.e., as recently as 10,000-12,000 years ago. He also theorized that these landmasses must have had fresh-water lakes in order to account for the existence of fresh-water animals (Malaise, 1956).* Commenting on Malaise' theory, Kolbe writes: ". . . it provides a natural explanation of the layer consisting exclusively of fresh-water diatoms, which is otherwise difficult to comprehend" (Kolbe, 1957).


The six levels of terraces discovered by the Woods Hole expeditions suggest that the Atlantic island was constantly changing shape--as well as being reduced in size--before it finally disappeared at the end of the Ice Age. Such geological changes would have been catastrophic to any life living on such a landmass: the unhappy result of the constant violence of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. If the Atlantic landmass happened to be inhabited by humans, these violent disturbances could well have been the cause of the four Cro-Magnon "invasions" outlined on the Anthropological page of this web site. These well documented invasions impacted the western shores of North Africa and Europe (including Great Britain and other Atlantic islands) and occurred during a time frame of 35,000-12,000 years ago (the last invasion corresponding closely to the date given by Plato for the demise of Atlantis).
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« Reply #214 on: December 27, 2008, 09:42:57 pm »

NOTES

*It is more than interesting to note that one of Dr. Malaise' papers (listed also in the Bibliography) is entitled Atlantis en Geologisk Verklighet. This Swedish title, when translated into English reads: Atlantis: a Geologic Reality! I wonder how Malaise' professional career went from that point on. We know what happened to Prof. Hapgood's career after his publication of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. [Back]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cifelli, Richard, "Age relationships of Mid-Atlantic Ridge sediments," Special Paper No. 124, Geological Society of America, 1970.
Davies, Nigel, "Voyages to the New World," William Morrow and Co., Inc., New York, 1979.
de Camp, L. Sprague, "Lost Continents," Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1970.
Ewing, Maurice, "Exploring the Mid-Atlantic Ridge," The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. xciv, No. 3, September 1948.
Ewing, Maurice, "New Discoveries on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge," The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. xcvi, No. 5, November 1949.
Heezen, B.C., Tharp, M., Ewing, M., The North Atlantic, Washington D.C., 1959.
Kolbe, R. W., "Fresh-Water Diatoms from Atlantic Deep-Sea Sediments," Science, Vol. 126, No. 3282, 22 November, 1957.
Kolbe, R. W., "Turbidity Currents and Displaced Fresh-Water Diatoms," Science, Vol. 127. No. 3313, 27 June 1958.
Leonard, R. Cedric, A Geological Study of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Special Paper No. 1, Cowan Publ., Bethany, 1979.
Leonard, R. Cedric, "Quest for Atlantis," Manor Books Inc., New York, 1979.
Longwell, Flint & Sanders, "Physical Geology," John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York London Sydney, 1969.
Malaise, Rene, Sjunket l and i Atlanten, Ymer, Stockholm, 1956. (See also his Atlantis en Geologisk Verklighet, Bibliofilupplaga, Stockholm, 1951.)
Mellis, Otto, Zur Sedimentation in Der Romanche-Tiefe (Ein Beitrag zur Erklarung der Enstellung des Tiefseesandes in Atlantischen Ozean), Geologischen Rundschau, Goteborg, 1958.
Miller, J. P. & Scholten, R., "Ocean, Lakes, and Shoreline Features," Labratory Studies in Geology, No. 225, 1966.
Nansen, Fridtjof, "The Norwegian North polar expedition, 1893-1896: scientific results," Longmans, Green & Co., London New York, 1900-1903.
Pettersson, Hans, Atlantis och Atlanten, Albert Bonniers förlag, Stockholm, 1944.
Pettersson, Hans, "A Swedish deep-sea expedition," Communication by Sir John Edgell, F.R.S., received 18 February 1946.
Pettersson, Hans, "A Swedish deep-sea expedition," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (Series B), Biological Sciences, Vol. 134, No. 876, 2 Jul 1947.
Pettersson, Hans, "Exploring the Ocean Floor," Scientific American magazine, August 1950.
Piggot, Charles S., "Core samples of the ocean bottom," Carnegie Institution of Washington News Service Bulletin Staff Edition, 4 (no. 9), 6 December 1936.
Piggot, Charles S., "Core samples of the ocean bottom," Smithsonian Report for 1936, No. 944, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, pp. 207-16, 1937.
Sclater, John G., & Tapscott, Christopher, "The History of the Atlantic," Scientific American, Vol. 240, No. 6, June 1979.
Speicher, John, "Plate Tectonics--A Startling New View of Our Turbulent Earth," Popular Science, Vol. 200, No. 6, June 1972.
Tolstoy, I. & Ewing, M., "North Atlantic hydrography and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge," Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 60, No. 10, October 1949.
Zhirov, N. H., as he reports in his book "Atlantida" (English edition, p. 282), Moscow, 1958.


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« Reply #215 on: December 27, 2008, 09:48:26 pm »

PROOF OF THE FORMER EXISTANCE OF A
LARGE ISLAND ON THE MID ATLANTIC RIDGE

River Systems Extract - Azores as a Large Island

In 1971 we carried out an inspection of parts of the South Coast of San Miguel, the largest of the Azorean Islands. At one point, we found the remnants of a large, boulder filled, river-bed truncated by the shoreline. The rounded boulders were smoothly water-worn and massive (up to two feet across). The river bed, if we remember correctly, was some two hundred and fifty feet from bank to bank; but there was now insufficient width of island to sustain such a river. The boulders were so worn that they had, obviously, travelled a considerable distance, and a strong current of water with a head of thousands of feet would have been required to transport them. There was no room on the narrow island for such a current to be fostered - the rivers source must have lain to the north, on the flanks of a high mountain range. The present mountains on San Miguel are only a little over 3,000 feet high; and we estimate that it would have required a fall of at least 10,000 feet to have reduced boulders of that size, and hardness, to the degree of roundness which they profess.

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« Reply #216 on: December 27, 2008, 09:48:49 pm »

This discovery so intrigued us that we started an investigation of the mapped sea-bed around all of the islands, with remarkable results. We started with the 1:1 million scale Admiralty Chart - Arquipelago dos Acores - the numerous soundings of which gave a very good general view of the configuration of the sea bed over the whole group of Azorean islands, covering, from east to west - Ilheus das Formigas, Santa Maria, Sao Miguel, Terciera, Soa Jrge, Graciosa, Pico (with its 7,613 feet high, conical, volcanic peak). These were supplemented by larger scale charts where they were available.

We started by contouring the sea bed at intervals of 100 fathoms (600 feet), and it immediately became clear that the river systems that now modestly drain the southern flanks of Sao Miguel were merely head-water tributaries whose channels continued far out to sea, joining into one great, winding, submarine valley some 40 miles further to the south. Other islands contributed similar results and, outstanding, were the triple group of Fial, Sao Jorge and Terciera whose combined results spawned two long river-like valleys which joined into one large valley to give a system that extended for 180 miles.

The whole of the Azorean island group was separated and surrounded by a net of submarine valleys that had all the hall-marks of having once been river valley's on the surface. The Azores could - and probably had, within comparatively recent times - sunk by many thousands of feet.

The next step was to decide whether it was possible to detect any particular contours which might point to an ancient shore line pre dating the sinking of the area. In the south, there was a clear break in gradients around the 1,900 fathom (11,400 feet) contour where a very extensive plain dipped sharply into deeper water. In the north, much the same had happened but at a considerably more shallow depth.

It began to look as if a large land mass, 450 miles across from east to west, and 300 miles from north to south, had tilted from north to south and had sunk beneath the waves, leaving only its mountain peaks showing above the waters - peaks which now form the ten islands of the Azores.

After further calculation, we reached the conclusion that the tilting, either before or during foundering, had been of the order of 0.4 degrees, as a result of which the south coast had sunk more than 11,000 feet and the north coast only some 6,000 feet.

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« Reply #217 on: December 27, 2008, 09:49:23 pm »

We then reconstructed the land profiles to the approximate positions in
which they should have been before the catastrophe. We re-contoured the whole area, raising the north coast by 6,000 feet; the south coast by 11,000 feet; and the intervening area proportionally to the adopted gradient. The result was the outline map shown below.

It was now possible to visualise a great island about the size and shape of Spain, with high mountain ranges rising over 12,000 feet above sea level and impressive rivers running in curving valley systems. In the southeast, a feature which we have called 'The Great Plain' covered an area in excess of 3,500 square miles, and was watered by a river comparable in size to the River Thames in England. It has, and we shall sea, points in common with the great plain described by Plato in his Critias, as being a feature of the Island of Atlantis.

The study on which we have embarked has two parts. The first is to establish that a large island could have existed in mid-Atlantic in Pre-historic times; the second is to determine whether there could have been a connection between the inhabitants of such an island and our heroes - The Shining Ones.

In our judgement, the first of these parts has been successfully determined; and it is proper, therefore, to proceed with an examination of Plato's detailed description of Atlantis and its inhabitants.

Extract from Chapter 18 The Shining Ones by Christian and Barbara Joy O'Brien!
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« Reply #218 on: December 27, 2008, 09:49:44 pm »

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« Reply #219 on: December 27, 2008, 09:50:21 pm »


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« Reply #220 on: December 27, 2008, 09:51:00 pm »

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« Reply #221 on: December 27, 2008, 09:54:27 pm »

Scientist: Man in Americas earlier than thought
Archaeologists put humans in North America 50,000 years ago
By Marsha Walton and Michael Coren
CNN

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 Posted: 2:17 PM EST (1917 GMT)



One of the stone tools discovered in South Carolina made by early inhabitants.

(CNN) -- Archaeologists say a site in South Carolina may rewrite the history of how the Americas were settled by pushing back the date of human settlement thousands of years.
An archaeologist from the University of South Carolina today announced radiocarbon tests that dated the first human settlement in North America to 50,000 years ago -- at least 25,000 years before other known human sites on the continent.

"Topper is the oldest radiocarbon dated site in North America," said Albert Goodyear of the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology.

If true, the find represents a revelation for scientists studying how humans migrated to the Americas.

Most scientists believe humans' first ventures to the New World were across a land bridge from present-day Russia to Alaska about 13,000 years ago. The new evidence suggests humans crossed the land bridge much earlier -- possibly during an ice age -- to the Americas and rapidly colonized the two continents.

"It poses some real problems trying to explain how you have people (arriving) in Central Asia almost at the same time as people in the Eastern United States," said Theodore Schurr, anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a curator at the school's museum.

"You almost have to hope for instantaneous expansion...We're talking about a very rapid movement of people around the globe."

Schurr said that conclusive evidence of stone tools similar to those in the old world and uncontaminated radiocarbon dating samples would be needed to verify the findings as old as 50,000 years ago.

"If dating is confirmed, then it really does have a significant impact on our previous understanding of New World colonization," he said.

Modern humans, or homo sapiens, emerged between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago in Africa. Modern humans quickly fanned out to Australia and Central Asia about 50,000 years ago and arrived in Europe only about 40,000 years ago. It was thought until recently that no humans arrived in the New World until about 13,000 years ago. Archaic hominids like australopithecines and Neanderthals have never been found in the New World.

University of Wisconsin at Madison professor, geologist Thomas Stafford, said that the shocking results would shake scientists' theories about human development, but would lead to new ideas.

"It's a slow process," he said. "You have preconceived ideas...Until someone rocks the boat, you really don't think about something new."

Goodyear plans to publish his work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal next year which is the standard method by which scientists announce their findings

Until research is peer-reviewed, objective experts in the field have not necessarily had an opportunity to evaluate a scientist's methods, or weigh in on the validity of his conclusions.

Archaeologists will meet in October of 2005 for a conference in Columbia, South Carolina, to discuss the earliest inhabitants of North America, including a visit to the Topper Site.

Goodyear has been excavating the Topper dig site along the Savannah River since the 1980s. He recovered artifacts and tools last May that are expected to push the date of colonization back before most of the earliest known settlements on the continent.

Goodyear dug four meters (13 feet) deeper than the soil layer containing the earliest North American people, known as the Clovis culture, and began uncovering a plethora of tools.

Scientists and volunteers at the site in Allendale have unearthed hundreds of implements, many stone chisels and tools likely used to skin hides, butcher meat, carve antlers, wood and possibly ivory. The tools were fashioned from a substance called chert, a flint like stone that is found in the region.

These discoveries could push that date back thousands -- maybe even tens of thousands -- of years and demand a new explanation for how the Americas were first settled.

Since the 1930s, archaeologists have generally believed North America was settled by hunters following large game over a land bridge from Russia during the last major ice age about 13,000 years ago.

"That had been repeated so many times in textbooks and lectures it became part of the common lore," said Dennis Stanford, curator of archeology at the Smithsonian Institution. "People forgot it was only an unproven hypothesis."

Land-bridge assumption challenged
A growing body of evidence is prompting some scientists to challenge that assumption.

A scattering of sites from South America to Wisconsin have detected human presence before 13,000 years ago -- or the first Clovis sites -- since the first groundbreaking discovery of human artifacts in a cave near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936.

These discoveries have led archaeologists to support alternative theories -- such as settlement by sea -- for the Americas.

Goodyear and his colleagues began their dig at the Topper Site in the early 1980s with a goal of finding out more about the Clovis people, long thought to be the earliest people to settle the Americas.

Goodyear thought that because of the resources available along the Savannah River and the moderate climate it would be a good place to look for even earlier human settlers than the Clovis people.


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« Reply #222 on: December 27, 2008, 09:57:40 pm »

The mystery of the eighth continent
By P. Lal

PLATO spoke of it some 2500 years ago. Oceanographers have discovered what look like its vestiges, on the floor of the Atlantic. Writers have written about it. Libraries have catalogued it under the category of legends. The scientific community, by and large, has denied that it ever existed.

Yet, there are reasons to believe that Atlantis, the eighth continent, once existed, in the middle of the Atlantic, roughly between Spain, Africa and the Americas, and sank some 11,500 years ago, into the ocean, where it now rests at the bottom.

According to Plato, Atlantis had a powerful empire, with influence on and trade with, the countries on both sides of the Atlantic, the eastern American and the western African and European coasts. It was larger than Libya and Asia put together (here, Libya means North Africa and Asia means Asia minor and parts of the Middle East), from where one could pass through the whole of the "opposite continent". Plato’s reference to the "Opposite Continent" came to be true 2000 years after him, when America was discovered by Columbus. There is no reason why his account of the Atlantis should also not be true.

Plato ascribed his knowledge of Atlantis to the account possessed by Solon, the Athenian law-giver, which he obtained during a journey he made to Egypt. Solon had initially received the information from Egyptian priests who, in turn, had derived the knowledge from hieroglyphics inscribed on temple columns.

It is believed that Atlantis not only had trade relations with Egypt but several of its survivors fled to Egypt as also to other parts of the world when catastrophe struck the Atlantis.

Memories of a vanished island are also preserved in the myths and traditions of the countries and the people all along the Atlantic littoral — on both sides of the ocean. The memory also seems to be instinctively shared even by animals, as eels swim from fresh water rivers in America and Europe, to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic, to spawn and die, and migratory birds, during their flight from Europe to South America, circle over the same area, as if looking for a land which once existed and where they rested for a while.

Reference to the Atlantis is found in the ancient literature and records of the people in various parts of the world. Thus, in the Puranas and the Mahabharata of India, there is a mention of Attala, "the white island", a continent located in the western ocean, half a world away from India. In these very texts and some others, the world Atyantika has been used in relation to the final catastrophic destruction. Some of the tribes of north-western Africa near the Atlantic coast were described by ancient writers as Atlantes and Atlantioi who were descendants of Atlantean colonists. The Berber tribes of North Africa believe that there was a kingdom of Attala, off the African coast, with riches of gold and silver which sank into the see in antiquity and which will re-surface one day. It is believed by the Portuguese that Atlantida once existed near Portugal and parts of it, the Azores islands, are still jutting out their peaks from under the sea.

If the golden cities and fertile plains of the Atlantis were destroyed in one quick action, as it appears to be the case, it is all the more reason to find out as to what brought about its doom — whether some natural event or the forces unleashed by its advanced civilisation, for if latter was the case, there is a lesson or two to be learnt by the modern man.

The oldest records of our civilisation written on papyrus, carved on stones or inscribed on clay do not extend beyond 4000 B.C. or say 6000 years. That leaves us with a 6000-year period before we get back to the time-zone of Atlantis.

Plato described Atlantis in the two dialogues he wrote Timaeus and Critias". 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 you call the Columns of Hercules; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together and was the way to other islands and from the islands, you might pass through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean", wrote Plato. The oppostie continent obviously meant America discovered much later in the fifteenth century.

What is also remarkable is Plato’s mention of the "other islands" from which one could pass to the opposite continent. These other islands were probably land masses above the sea level before the last glaciation which took place about 11,000 to 12,000 years ago resulting in a rise of 600 to 1,000 feet in the sea-level all over the globe. Before the glaciation, therefore, islands in the Atlantic, like the Azores, Madiera, Cape Verde, Bermuda and the Bahamas, would have been much greater land masses than what they are today. How did Plato know of the existence of the "other islands" on the way to the opposite continent, when the seas were still unchartered during those regions?

Scientists believe that during the last 40 million years, the world has undergone a succession of ice-ages, each spell lasting about 1,00,000 years. The warm times in between — the interglacials — have been rather short, between 10,000 to 12,000 years. The last ice-age ended about 11,000 years ago. (In fact, we are headed for the next ice-age, about 1,000 years hence). The melting of large amounts of ice all over the world resulted in the rise of the sea levels. Cities on coast lines got submerged under water. It is speculated that Atlantis might also have disappeared under the sea at that time, as perhaps the Krishna’s city of Dwarika on the western coast of Gujarat. However, as mentioned in the Mahabharata, Krishna knew of the coming disaster and warned Arjun who evacuated the city in good time. The Egyptian priests spoke to Solon, "a great conflagration of things upon the Earth recurring at long intervals of time: When this happens, those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the sea shore. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the Earth with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on the mountains, are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in cities are carried by rivers into the sea".

According to Plato, the inhabitants of the Atlantis had an advanced irrigation system, harbours on the sea-shore, mighty fleets, large temples, and used gold and another unidentified metal, possibly a gold alloy, called orichalcum. They had a system of land allotment, agriculture, domestic and wild animals, military, government and commerce. "Beginning from the sea, they dug a canal 300 feet in width and one hundred feet in depth and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the upper most zone, making a passage from the sea upto this, which became a harbour, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress" "Stadium" was a Greek unit of length which measured 610 feet.

Recent discoveries of unidentified ruins under the Atlantic Ocean where great stone roads or platforms were found fitted into place have given credence to the belief that Atlantis once existed. Members of a deep-sea expedition of the then USSR on board the "Academician Petrovsky", a research ship, photographed seafloors in the Atlantic in 1974, near Horseshoe Archipelago, 300 miles west of Gibraltar. The pictures taken on the summit of Ampere Seamount, rising from 10,000 feet within 200 feet of the suface of the sea, showed remarkable features like stone walls, the masonry block of the walls being upto 1.5 metres high, and the width of the walls being 75 cm the stone staircase cut into the cliff of which the five steps were clearly visible, and levelled off stone platform connected to another staircase. Subsequent expeditions have not only confirmed the finds but discovered more of the type over a wider area.

In 1981, an expedition along the underwater shelf off the Canary Islands disclosed large stone slabs set on the sea bottom at a depth of about 50 feet over an area of 900 sq feet. The stones appeared to be carefully set, and wide stone steps led down from the central pavement. An undersea wall, off the Moroccan coast, extending several miles in length, has also been discovered and photographed.

Besides the theory of the drowning of the Atlantis’ due to the rise in the sea level at the end of the last Ice age, the other theories given out for its sudden disappearance include violent earthquakes, seaquakes and volcanic explosions resulting in its sinking into the sea. The mid-Atlantic ridge, dividing the Atlantic into two almost equal parts, is the highest mountain range, under water, and is situated in the most active seismic zone. In the past few hundred years, there have been several known instances of the appearance and disappearance of islands in the Atlantic, due to the seismic activity of its oceanic floor. Thus, in 1622, the city of Villa Franca, capital of the Azorian island of Sao Maguel fell into the sea due to a sudden seismic convulsion. In 1811, a large volcanic island appeared in the Azores, was given the name Sambrina, and then disappeared into the sea after a few years.

It is also speculated that the advanced civilisation of the Atlantis had tapped unknown sources of energy specially those inherent in the tectonic plate movements which are responsible for earthquakes. Unwise utilisation of this source of energy might have led to its being destroyed in a major earthquake.

Whatever the truth about the Atlantis, the same is bound to be known with the application of modern day tools of research and discovery. Till then, it will remain in the realm of speculation, buried at the bottom of the Atlantic.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/1999/99oct03/sunday/head4.htm

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« Reply #223 on: December 27, 2008, 09:58:33 pm »

1969 begins
The Site of Atlantis, By E. Sykes

I have always held that the best chances of finding traces of Atlantis and of its capital The City of the Golden Gates was off the Azores and I am very glad to see that Dr. Malaise in his new book thoroughly agrees with me as does also M. Framdsen, a Danish Engineer who mapped out the Atlantean plain near the Azores. Here to my mind is the only possible chance of finding Atlantean remains, the site of the wonderful metropolis of Plato is now within easy reach thanks to standard commercial underwater equipment of today. The cost of an expedition using television should not exceed $50,000 and would probably be far less. When one realizes that there must be literally hundreds tons of gold and silver lying about, provided that one knows where to look, the idea certainly has some attraction. Obviously remains will be found all over the place as the range of Atlantean influence was wide. But there were but a couple of cities: The City of the Golden Gates and the City of Transparent Walls, if history has not managed to forget the names of any other. But the only one we can site with accuracy is the City of the Golden Gates. E.S. 1969


What Paul le Cour said about the Corvo Equestrian Statue in 1935. E. Sykes 1969

Translated from Atlantis, Paris No. 60 for July August 1935.

"I was recently asked by one of our readers, Dr. Gibault, about a passage in Book 6 of "Memories d' Outre Tombe" by Chateaubriand which runs as follows:

"It is probable that the Azores were known to the Carthaginians; it is certain that a Phoenician Coins were found on Corvo. The first modern seamen to reach the island found there, it is said, an equestrian statue, with the right arm outstretched and pointing to the West, provided, however that this statue is not the type of fabrication, which adorns the earliest portulans….I supposed, that in the manuscript of Natchez, that Chartas, returning from Europe (Book 7 of Natchez), made landfall on Corvo and came across the mysterious statue." Dr. Bibault continued: "Do you not think that perhaps on reality? In that case what kind of monument is in question? Of what period is it? What did it represent? Does it still exist? Why did Chateaubriand query the picture which might well have been reproduction of the statue??" Le Cour stated that at that time he had nothing which would confirm the story or not. However in the 33 years which have elapsed since the article was written we have managed to turn up quite a lot of fresh data. But what one would like to see would be the portulan in which was included the drawing of the statue. Le Cour continued by referring to the stela depicting an Atlantean Temple which was discovered on San Miguel, and of which a photograph was seen shortly before the writing of the article, by M. Matila Ghyka. During his stay on the island he endeavored, without success, to see the photograph in the museum at Los Angeles, but instead learnt from M. Vasco Benisaude that in the multi volume set of the Archives of the Azores which was in his library, there was a mention of the discovery of the grotto containing the stele, on San Miguel. The article concludes that le Cour was still awaiting the receipt of a copy of the photograph from M. Ghyka. He had also heard that the stele was in a museum in Bombay but had no idea how it got there. Inquiries made in 1966-67 to Bombay produced no result, while the son or grandson of M. Benisaude was unable to help us about the records. It seems evident that if it is desired to make a cross check on this story as against that told in the manuscript of Thevet, the only way will be to visit the island of San Miguel. I have no idea who M. Ghyka was or whether he left any papers behind. That the information is still to be found there seems reasonably certain. E. Sykes 1969

A New Deal in Geology, By E. Sykes (a summary)

Dr. Malaise published two Swedish editions on the subject of Atlantis and his main point was:

"Geologically it is impossible for Atlantis not to have existed." And here is the Chapter points-

Our Knowledge of the interior of the Earth.
The Constriction Theory of Nils Odhner.
The Last Ice Age, its causes and the Geographical Effects.
The bed of the Ocean and the submerged land region.
The Mediterranean and the Atlantean Continent.
The Significance of Atlantis in Early Human Culture and its relationship of Early American Man.
Unsolved Problems of the Permo Carboniferous and Earlier Ice Ages.
"His work has no emotional background of any kind, every source can be verified and checked and, what is more he was able to make full use of the sources available at through the Swedish Museum of Natural History during a long and distinguished career there."


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« Reply #224 on: December 27, 2008, 10:02:14 pm »

Perhaps the Mid Atlantic Ridge was Atlantis. Between 1872-1876, scientists aboard the HMS Challenger discovered the Mid Atlantic Ridge (Encyclopedia Britannica, 25:168:1a). The Mid Atlantic Ridge is a submerged mountain range on the Atlantic Ocean's floor. The ridge extends 10,000 miles from north to south, in an S-shaped path. The ridge reaches a width of 1,000 miles. Some of the mountains of the ridge are above sea level, and are islands. Some of those islands are the Azores, Ascension, and St. Helena (Encyclopedia Britannica, 8:106:2b). Most of the Mid Atlantic Ridge is covered to a depth of 3,000 meters (Galanopoulos, p. 53).
Plato's writings also indicate that numerous artesian wells (natural fountains) were on the earth in ancient times. Perhaps this was the result of the Great Flood, after which the continents were saturated with water that took centuries to drain into the oceans.

From Critias
...[The land] let off into the hollows the streams which it absorbed from the heights, providing everywhere abundant fountains and rivers, of which there may still be observed sacred memorials in places where fountains once existed; and this proves the truth of what I am saying. (http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/Atlantis/critias_page3.html)
Guanche Legend

The Canary Islands are a group of Spanish-owned islands in the Atlantic Ocean, off the northwest coast of Africa. The aborigines of the Canary Islands, called the "Guanches" (whose culture is now extinct), believed in a Supreme, Almighty and Eternal God. They also believed in a devil (Gil, pp. 31-32). The Guanches were related to the Berbers of North Africa, and were conquered by the Spanish in the 15th century (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2:793:3b).

[The Guanches] ...had a brown complexion, blue or gray eyes, and blondish hair... Their food staples consisted mainly of milk, butter, goat flesh, pork, and some fruits; and their clothing comprised leather tunics or vests made of plaited rushes... they were known to have been monotheists (Encyclopedia Britannica, 5:532:1a).

From Charles Berlitz's book, The Lost Ship of Noah:
The inhabitants of the Canary Islands were white-skinned, of tall and muscular stature, and many were blond-haired and blue-eyed. They were officially discovered in 1395 by Jean de Bethencourt, a French nobleman in the service of Spain. When the Spanish landed they could not communicate with the natives, who spoke no language known to the Spaniards. When the islanders had learned enough Spanish to communicate they told the surprised Spanish visitors that they could not understand where the men and ships had come from as they believed that the Great Flood had drowned everyone in the world except themselves. Once, they said, their ancestors had lived in a large land with great cities, fertile plains, and rivers, but a flood had covered it, and only a few people who had been able to flee to the high mountains had survived. The islands where they now were living once were the mountaintops of their vanished homeland. The waters receded but (and they pointed to the surrounding Atlantic Ocean) were still there. This curious tradition with its suggestion of Atlantis, the Flood, a civilization destroyed by the waters, and survivors who fled to the mountains, was never sufficiently researched by the Spanish conquerors who, within a short time, annihilated the native population in a series of wars. Their language too was lost..." (Berlitz, pp. 132-3).

I pulled the following information off of a Spanish Internet web site in the Summer of 1996. The author is unknown, and I lost the web site URL. I am including this information, however, because it is interesting to note that the Spanish continue to hypothesize as to how the Guanche people originally arrived at the Canary Islands, even though the Guanches themselves told the Spaniards that the Guanches escaped to the mountains from a flood of rising water, and that those mountains became islands when the water remained, stranding the Guanche people. The Spanish, apparently, continue to disbelieve the Guanche legend, which, based on the information presented in this article, may have been the truth. The passage below was originally in Spanish; I translated it into English.

The Europeans 'discovered' the Canary Islands in the first half of the 14th century. They found a people who were later named "Guanches," who today continue to be surrounded with many mysteries. Where did they come from? How did they get to the islands? When did they arrive?
Certainly, they must have arrived via the ocean. They arrived accompanied by their domesticated animals: goats, sheep, pigs, and dogs. They carried wheat and barley with them. They originated from North Africa. They share the same roots as the Berbers of the Atlas region. This simple affirmation has cost rivers of ink and very long discussions, in which archaeology and ethnography mix with politics.
Just as the European conquerors said, the Guanches were "of the white race, tall, muscular, very beautiful, and there were many blondes among them." Their great height, it is understood, was relative to the medium height of the Europeans of that period of time. Regarding the presence of blondes: even today, after many centuries of invasions and mixing of genes, one can find the traits of blonde hair and blue eyes among the Berbers of the African Atlas region...
The ancestors of the Guanches arrived by sea, colonized the islands, and forgot how to use a boat! When the Europeans arrived at the Canaries, they found a people who lived in a neolithic culture, based on sheep herding, fruit harvesting, and very limited farming. This [culture] was common among all of the islands, but on each, [the people] had developed a microcosm to the extent that [the people of each island] had developed their own dialects [of the Guanche language]. The islands disconnected the peoples from each other; the natives did not know how to use boats, and fished only along the coastlines. This is one of the enigmas of the Guanches. How is it possible that a people arrived via the ocean to these small islands, lived surrounded by the ocean, had, on various islands, enormous forests and large trees of premium material for boat building, yet were ignorant of the sea and lived a backward lifestyle? There are a number of hypotheses: perhaps the inhabitants of the Canaries were simply passengers, shepherds transported by mariners, who were later forgotten and lost their luck.
It is unreasonable to think that the Guanche people forgot how to use boats, even to travel among the Canary Islands. It seems that if the Guanche people's ancestors had ever used boats, Guanche oral tradition would have said so. It is more reasonable to think that the Guanches never had boating technology. Again, the above passage shows that Spanish hypothesists continue to ignore the Guanche legend that sea level rose, turning mountains into the Canary Islands. Rather, the Spanish hypothesize that the Guanches somehow arrived by sea via boat, and then forgot how to use boats. Based on the information presented in this article, however, the Guanche legend that sea level rose, stranding the Guanche people on mountains that became islands, may have been the truth.


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