Ancient Sunken City Discovered Off Shores of Cuba. Maybe 439
King Africa writes "Explorers using a miniature submarine to probe the sea floor off the coast of Cuba said on Thursday they had confirmed the discovery of stone structures deep below the ocean surface that may have been built by an unknown human civilization thousands of years ago.
The explorers said they believed the mysterious structures, discovered at the astounding depth of around 2,100 feet and laid out like an urban area, could have been built at least 6,000 years ago. That would be about 1,500 years earlier than the great Giza pyramids of Egypt. " The BBC has a bit more substantative article on this as well - but I do wonder how they assigned the date "of at least 6000 years ago" to this.
Atlantis at last! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Atlantis at last! (Score:4, Informative)
Would have made a good Slashdot story, as well...
Re:Atlantis at last! (Score:5, Informative)
Very interesting, haven't heard of that one. The article lacks any real substance though, other than I found "this island that was in the right place at the right time".
Does anyone know if they surveyed it? Is there any evidence at all that humans lived there? Unusal stone structures? To even make the claim that it could be Atlantis, I would imagine that you need to have evidence of a civilization. It sounds like this guy basically said "Here's an island that fits the time frame, don't bother me while I go back to studying migration patterns of the palezoic."
The one other possibility that no one likes to discuss is that Plato was lying/making this up/a crackpot. It's not modern civilization owns the rights to writing down things that simply aren't true.
Re:Atlantis at last! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Atlantis at last! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Atlantis at last! (Score:2)
Maybe the magician did it!
Hi! (Score:2, Funny)
When I discovered this submerged city, I immediately thought of you.
I'm in a harry, I promise you will love it!
<< File: Atlantis.scr >>
carbon dating? (Score:5, Funny)
no doubt by checking the log files on their mainframes, silly.
don't you know that any newly discovered ancient civilization is bound to have been centuries ahead of it's time in technology. don't you watch movies?
Re:carbon dating? (Score:5, Informative)
Carbon dating would be one way, but you might have some issues.
Carbon dating only wors on organic matter. Carbon 14 is an isotope of carbon that is used in dating. Carbon 14 is created by the sun in the atmosphere, organic entities take in carbon dioxide during breathing, a small parcentage of which contains carbon 14, carbon 14 is used by the entity and stored in it.
When the entity dies, the carbon 14 is no longer being replenished from the atmosphere, it decays. You can figure out how much carbon the item would have if it were still alive by looking at similar items, see how much the item has and use the decay rate to find the time.
Nifty, the problems are though that its organic (no stone, no metal. Organic coloring on the metal or stone can be dated by not the inorganic stuff). Also, this stuff has been siting on the bottom of the ocean. Its possible that other sea life/salt/etc has contaminated many organic leftovers (or the organic leftovers have completely rotted away).
However, there are other things you can use to date items that have been underwater. Coral growth is fairly constant and measureable. And any silt that has deposited on top of the stone would also be datable because its organic.
So the 6000 years may not be quite accurate. It may have been 6000 years since it was submerged, but for all we know it may have been abanded for a 1000 years before then.
Re:carbon dating? (Score:5, Informative)
This discovery was mentioned on Art Bell's show about 6 months ago. The researchers sound like quacks and are basing most of their dating assumptions on, well, nothing really.
If they found some intact beams they could use dendrochronology (ie tree ring dating) which is much more precise than carbon dating (+- in 10 year increments depending on whether it is a cutting date or a 'vv' date). That tells you when the beam was cut, which of course brings all sorts of questions about longevity of the structures. In the southwest, where I used to work, there are beams in Taos Pueblo that date back to the 1300s. They are still using them today.
Dating is a very difficult part of archaeology. Everything is based on associations that you must assume hold. They do not always end up being true.
I would wait and see on this one.
Re:carbon dating? (Score:4, Funny)
And here I thought only us computer geeks had trouble getting a date!
Re:carbon dating? (Score:3, Interesting)
Irresponsible, huh? (Score:3, Funny)
"It's a really wonderful structure which really looks like it could have been a large urban centre... However, it would be totally irresponsible to say what it was before we have evidence."
Well, alright then.
RC
Some pictures might be nice... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention actual, reputable, archaeologists.
Legends/oral traditions have preserved quite a bit of actual history over millenia, despite entropy, destruction or loss of records, and religious/ideological suppression. Poems are particularly resistant to change: The rythm, rhyme schemes, alliteration, and other artistic conventions serve as error-correcting codes. These have proven quite useful in directing archaeologists on where to dig.
For a long time they were discounted. But that was before the rich guy with the bee in his bonet funded the dig that discovered the ruins of Troy - the first of several successes using the technique of analyzing legends and seeing what sites in the real world might match.
The Atlantis legend is quite widespread and a number of sites have been considered as possible matches. But none have been really convincing so far.
A 6,000-ish year old city 2,000 feet down just off the coast of Cuba ("Island Beyond the Gates of Hercules") sounds like a very good candidate - especially given that the Americas had about as many years for civilizations to rise and fall as the EurAsian/African landmass did, along with sufficient population and resources to make it happen.
Let's see how this develops.
Re:Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, Plato made the entire legend up, without any precedent. The widespread Atlantis legends all spring from that single invention. (The "great flood" legends are distinct and separate from Atlantis legends.)
[T]he Americas had about as many years for civilizations to rise and fall as the EurAsian/African landmass did, along with sufficient population and resources to make it happen.
Almost, but not quite. The Americas had about as long, true, but there was a huge lack of cultivatable plants and domesticable large animals. See Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel [amazon.com] for a good introduction.
Re:Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? And after all these years how do you show that Plato did it himself, rather than simply repeating something he had heard and being the first person to be recorded to do so. The same was said about Homer and the Oddesy, but they found Troy.
The Americas had about as long, true, but there was a huge lack of cultivatable plants and domesticable large animals.
The Egyptians built quite well with just human labor rather than using domestic animals. (Also: The Americas had quite a range of stuff - including wolly mamoths - until the inhabitants ATE them.)
As for plants - where do you think corn comes from, just for starters? And tomatoes? There were a number of other crop plants in the Americas that weren't available in the "old world" - including a grain that was nearly made extinct by the Spaniards (in their reaction to a rather bloody ritual that was associated with its cultivation).
Despite the convenient old world conceit that they "civilized" the new world (rather than wiping out the current civilizations there by introducing disease and then conquering or subverting the cultures most of the survivors, destroying their records and traditions) there have been several rather extensive civilizations in the Americas. These include one that was destroyed by a climate change well before the European invasion, and an empire that formed the ACTUAL foundation of the resurgence of Repulics. One more would be no surprise.
Re:Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:2)
You mean Amaranth [www.hku.hk]? Not extinct; I like to eat it like popcorn [chetday.com].
Re:Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:3, Insightful)
The most likely reason for this is that there may be no one "Atlantis." Think about it - what is Atlantis? First, you need a volcanic island of some sort. There are plenty of those, so you need to drop some people on this island a few thousand years ago. People have a habit of ending up in strange places, so that isn't too unrealistic either. Now they need to develop some advanced technology and build a nice society. Being on a remote island thousands of years ago was probably a pretty good form of defense, and people can be rather resourceful when they have to rely on themselves and they aren't being killed all the time. Finally, make the volcano go boom and destroy the place, with a few people escaping with little more than their lives and their memories. After this happens a few times, mix the legends together, add in some similar stories in various places for local flavor, have some Greek guy try to make sense of it and write down a single description, and watch people search the entire world for a single place that matches this description...
Re:Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:2)
Crossing the Pond (Score:2)
Who said the Greeks did it? If there was an empire on the other side of the gates, why couldn't they have been the ones to do it?
As to doability - Thor Heyerdahl has done a couple of proofs-of-concept that it could be done, easily, with the technology available in the old world at the time. (And a few generations of wooden sailing ships, different in detail but not much more seaworthy than what was plying the Mediteranian in Plato's time, made an industry out of it a couple centuries ago.)
People do it now in dinghies, kayaks, and rafts, just for the sport. It's not all THAT hard if the weather's right.
There's lots of evidence in the Americas of intermittent contact with the old world through prehistory. There are a couple loops of current, along with prevailing winds, in the Atlantic that will tend to take ships that get blown away from one hemisphere's continents to the other if it happens in the right season and from the right areas. Thor showed that small boats blown off-course could make it, with the people living off the sea for quite a long while.
So there's nothing impossible or inconsistent with current paradigms about an occasionall inter-hemisphere contact bringing news of an advanced American city-state, and its destruction, to southern Europe.
Re:Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not quite how it went. Leaving aside the fact that archeological treasures are much simpler to smuggle than architectural ones, Heinrich Schliemann (the rich guy in question) actually donated the stuff to museums, and also later repaid the government of Turkey.
But he was also rather a bad archeologist and may in fact have brought the "treasures of Troy" into the country with him. With 160 people working the Troy site, it's a tad strange that Schliemann was the only one to locate anything valuable. See this link [unmuseum.org] for details.
Re:Archaeologists will talk about Atlantis, too. (Score:2)
That's pretty much how it went. I admit I misspoke though; he didn't actually sell them, but he did try to, only to find that potential sellers found the idea repugnant. He then donated some of the treasure that he had no right to, and the reparations he paid to Turkey were a small fraction of the actual value of the collection. He was an inveterate liar, and there is substantial evidence to suggest that the real discoverer of Troy was the British archeologist Frank Calvert, who made the mistake of going to Schliemann for help funding a dig.
Re:Let's see... It's not April 1st.. (Score:3, Funny)
Ia, Ia Cthulhu phtagn
;-)
Atlantis (Score:2, Funny)
Or is it the lost city of Atlanta?
I hope it's not R'Lyeh (Score:4, Interesting)
Since the explorers are still alive, and wrote the article, it may be safet to presume it may not be R'Lyeh.
Bork!
Mysterious Cities D'Or! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mysterious Cities D'Or! (Score:2)
Re:Mysterious Cities D'Or! (Score:2)
I remember very little about it though, other than most of the series was about them trying to get to the city and they didn't actually get there until the last episodes.
odd wording... (Score:4, Funny)
they have discovered what they think are the ruins of a submerged city built thousands of years ago.
Are they implying that the city was submerged when it was actually populated? Or did they mean to say "submerged ruins of a city built thousands of years ago."
Re:odd wording... (Score:2)
Re:odd wording... (Score:2)
No just a really bad B movie sequal.
Its offtopic but, I remeber an easter egg in SimCity 2k where you could flood a populated area using the water tool and not effect the population. IIRC, I submerged 200K once when I was bored.
What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:4, Interesting)
Any geology types in the house?
Re:What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:2, Interesting)
It isn't that implausible if you allow catastrophic geological events, like a trench opening and the poor island hump on top of it suddenly being dropped
Of course, if something that catastrophic happened, I don't feel you'd be seeing pyramids, buildings, and roads 6000 years later - you'd be seeing a lot of rocks piled atop one another...
need... more... information........
Re:What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:2)
Re:What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:2)
Ahh...lets see Volcano...earth quake...ect (Score:2, Interesting)
Regardless all you need is a natural cavern which the city is built on(see NYC), that's atleast 2000-3000ft deep(see NYC), where an earthquake cracks the cavern, or due to large ammounts of people or structures weakens the dome to the point where a large enough earthquake cause it to colapse.
Not exactly far fetched, almost like the annazi temple off the coast of japan sunk in 30ft of water. Though the temple exactly mirrors the aztec temples in central america...hmm...could it be possible that we've been semi-advanced before only to be almost wiped out by a massive geologic event? And the human race was scattered to the winds, leading to similar advances in technology and structures around the world, or is this all coincidence?
Re:Ahh...lets see Volcano...earth quake...ect (Score:4, Funny)
You do know that Yosemitie National Park is on top of one the "super" volcano's. I mean if the thing blew again there is a chance it would cause massive loss of life, they are talking 3ft of ash 3000 miles away.
You misspelled Yellowstone.
Re:Ahh...lets see Volcano...earth quake...ect (Score:2, Insightful)
When the christians burned the library of Alexandria
The Library of Alexandria was burned by the Romans at the time of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. That is pre-Christianity.
The effect of natural disasters (Score:5, Informative)
In 1960 the most powerful earthquake of the 20th century moved the Chilean coast 60 feet in 5 minutes.h tm [extremescience.com]
http://www.extremescience.com/GreatestEarthquake.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/tsunamis/chile/ [usc.edu]
In 1998 Hurricane Mitch pushed rivers 100's of feet up mountains, created brand new rivers, caused landslides which changed the shapes of mountains and covered entired cities, and left parts of the land covered in water over a year later. (if you're in Nicaragua look for the "Las Casitas" memorial - the distant mountain which caused the landslide shows obvious changes in its shape).
http://www.osei.noaa.gov/mitch.html [noaa.gov]
http://www.acerca.org/ejd1_results1.html [acerca.org]
Volcanic eruptions can be so great as to cause the birth of islands. There was a well-studied one in the Pacific in 2000, i believe. Also in Nicaragua is an interesting series of small islands caused by a nearby volcano loosing its top - large pieces of land were blown miles away and landed in a lake creating these islands. I dont remember the name of the lake or volcano, though i have some photos at /home.7 62000/762047.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_
Natural Disasters are called "disasters" for a reason. 6000 years seems plenty for the earth to move a small bit of land a couple hundred metres.
Re:What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:2)
Re:What geological phenomena could sink 2000 feet (Score:2)
'Bona-fide' ancient civilisation scholars to check (Score:2, Insightful)
Thing is, the pseuds may have a point. We don't really know a lot about ancient civilisations to say. I wonder how they came up with the 'older-than-Giza' thing too...
Only expressing an opinion, not wanting to go trolling around the web at the moment to bring up the refs -- currently doing something else, do look elsewhere for facts :)
Yay Canada! (Score:2, Interesting)
The article says they're among several firms searching the waters around Cuba for shipwrecks, many of which are belived to have been carrying gold and valuables when they sank. It's purly for scientific research of course =)
how they assigned the date... (Score:2, Funny)
They probably just read the sign:
The Lost City
est. 6000 BC (yes we know what C stands for)
pop.: depends on the date
Re:how they assigned the date... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Very strange... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Very strange... (Score:3, Informative)
Read about it in III Nephi chapter 9 [lds.org]
Re:Very strange... (Score:3, Insightful)
a) the figure 6000 years wasn't just pulled out of someones butt
b) the city in question was roughly contemporary with the cataclysm that sunk it
both those assumptions are somewhat weak, but there aren't cataclysmic events recorded in the Jaredite portion of the Book of Mormon (well, natural disasters).
I like the Book of Mormon. I think it's worthy of being approached as a valid spiritual text, I think it's interesting spiritually and anthropologically, but I also think that any link between it and this city is largely unclear. Other than the fact they occur in the same hemisphere.
politics (Score:5, Funny)
They're still waiting for the government to appropriate funds to provide adequate drainage. The problem is that this would require a government-sponsered lottery. I guess the right-wingers decided they'd rather be all wet.
~z
Re:politics (Score:5, Funny)
6000 year figure (Score:2, Informative)
They probably used coral growth to find out how old it was. Coral grows at a steady rate every year, so they can figure out how thick the coral is, they can approximate the amount of time it has been growing there.
Anyone else thinking this might be Atlantis? =P
Zeno
Re:6000 year figure (Score:2)
Re:6000 year figure (Score:2)
it was on tv so it must be true!
Re:6000 year figure (Score:2)
IIRC, the deepest known coral reefs are about 100 feet down in places like the Red Sea, Micronesia, Bali and other regions that are known for the clarity of the water.
Three words... (Score:5, Funny)
Not that old (Score:4, Funny)
An aside: I never thought I'd see the day when this [artbell.com] link would be on topic for Slashdot...
Re:Not that old (Score:3, Funny)
Interview with ADC (Score:3, Informative)
Saw something on TV about this MONTHS ago ... (Score:3, Interesting)
uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
"May 20, 2001 article reports on sonar sightings of what appear to be man-made structures on the seabed near Cuba...."
http://www.andrewcollins.net/page/articles/lostcit y.htm [andrewcollins.net]
"In a press release dated Havana, 14 May 2001 Reuters of London..."
Update on Mysterious Deep Water Sonar Images Off Western Cuba [earthfiles.com]
Underwater City Reported Off Western Cuba [earthfiles.com]
I could go on, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Hint: try a google search for "cuba" and "underwater" and "city"
Ya'd think /. would have picked up on this a while ago, but then, maybe not...
I guess "news" doesn't necessarily mean "new".
t_t_b
Re:uh... (Score:2, Insightful)
As to whether or not it should be on SlashDot...
...maybe if we could look at some of these images of which they speak.
Is there a geologist in the house? (Score:3, Informative)
The BBC story specifically mentions that this is a followup on last year's discovery. The following quote is from the BBC story (second link in the original story):
So, it's the images brought back by the robot which are the news.
On to the good stuff:
In the Reuters story (first link in the original post), they address (sort of) the really interesting questions:
Volcanic activity?? I'm no geologist, but I suspect that someone who is could shred that effectively. I've lived on rising and falling coastlines, and I've never seen volcanic action blamed for the rise/fall in either of the physical geology books I read. Subduction of the ocean floor can cause volcanic activity, but I find it hard to imagine it running the other way.
As for how to date it, a rough-and-ready way to establish a bound on the date would be via geology: when was that area last above water? In order to fall 2100 feet below sealevel in 6000 years, it would have to sink at an average of 0.35 feet per year. Four point two inches per year seems a bit fast to me. Is the Cuban coast actually sinking, even? Is there a geologist in the house?
You could also get a fairly good clue by checking the amount of coral growth on the blocks. Coral needs to be near the surface to grow, so they could only have accumulated coral in the initial centuries after their submersion. No coral would suggest either that the coral has somehow been eroded away, or that those blocks were never near the surface.
I've got it! (Score:2)
more info and lame pics courtesy of google (Score:3, Informative)
second interview [earthfiles.com]
jar jar (Score:2, Funny)
More information here on age of site ... (Score:5, Interesting)
This Globe & Mail article [globeandmail.com] has substantially more information on this finding, including the quote below which answers the above question:
The article also makes notes of symbols and inscriptions on the structures and that the images "bear a remarkable resemblance to the pyramidal design of Mayan and Aztec temples in Mexico."
ian.
Re:More information here on age of site ... (Score:2)
So, if it predates the Mayans by 1400-2500 years (depending on how you view it), then I doubt they're very closely related to the Mayans, since the Mayans didn't really get that far North either. They got to the Northern end of the Yucatan Peninsula, which is around where modern day Merida, Mexico is, going down into Central America.
The precursors to the Olmecs is more likely, but I doubt that as well.
Ohmigawd (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Ohmigawd (Score:2)
6000 BC? (Score:3, Informative)
Take a look at this time line [isourcecom.com] for more info.
Now my guess is that they have the dates all wrong. There has always been a mystery behind the disappearance of these people. could a previously unknown catastrophic event have caused these people to be wiped out? a lost city at the bottom of the sea seems to point in that direction.
Re:6000 BC? (Score:4, Interesting)
This must be a new, unknown civilization. The Aztecs did not formally settle in Mexico until ~1200 AD, the Mayans florished in the Yucatan around ~150 AD, and the Olmec started out around 1000 AD.
Actually, the Olmecs started around 1000 BC. Yes, I know it was a typo, I'm just being mean.
An archaeology textbook that happened to be in the vicinity of my computer lists the first Mayan communities at about 1000 B.C., and were well-established by 600 B.C., when they were constructing their pyramids.
Personally, if this is man-made (yes, it probably is, but I don't know if I'd rule out natural geologic processes yet), I doubt very much it would be anywhere near 6000 years old; the oldest known semi-urban civilizations in the New World only date from about 2000 BC, and even then only a handful of groups were moving away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. I also doubt that this would be a previously undiscovered civilization, if the remains have only been found in such a small area. Probably would be an outpost of one of the mesoamerican groups, though I'm not sure how they would get there. It's kind of a long way from Tenochtilan, and if they traveled up around the Gulf you'd expect to find other sites with similiar architecture.
Re:6000 BC? (Score:2)
Dating underwater structures (Score:2, Informative)
It's not exactly carbon 14 dating; it's analysis of coral structures and related debris. Basically, it has to do with the rate of changes in coral structures over time, as well as sedimentation and things of that nature. Information about coral dating can be found here [umd.edu] and here [sunysuffolk.edu]. Uranium/Thorium dating can be used on marine sediment (info here [mnsu.edu]). Actually, the entire "Dating Exibit" site [mnsu.edu] has a simplistic but good explanation of various relative and absolute dating techniques.
Forget Atlantis (Score:3, Funny)
"We've found an extremely large oblong box with a fanciful star shaped clasp. We're sending the robot down now to retrieve the artifact. Looks like it's going to be a great day!"
They found a bunch of neat looking rocks... (Score:2)
Quoting a FOAF on this: (Score:2)
Let's see here. Stone city? Check. Submerged? Check.
Interesting angled stone mentioned in some articles?
Check. Sounds like R'Lyeh to me! Let's go party with
C'thulhu...!
Bimini Roads (Score:4, Informative)
At anyrate here is a link from Paul Heinrich's Wild Side Geoarcheology entry on the Bimini roads:
[intersurf.com]
Bimini Roads And Atlantis
Bimini Columns And Atlantis [intersurf.com]
Bimini Granite Stones and Atlantis [intersurf.com]
Just wondering....
Age of the city (Score:2, Funny)
By the sign on one of the restaurant doors that said "est. 4000 b.c."
Creationism (Score:2, Funny)
Biblical Flood? (Score:3, Funny)
That would be a significant enough event. Not to mention most creationist believe that at one time the continents were together etc...
Just a thought...
Read carefully for context: (Score:5, Informative)
"AND WHAT WAS IT THAT AS YOU LOOKED AT THIS SONAR IMAGE, WHAT WAS IT THAT EXCITED YOU?
Frank Muller-Karger, Ph.D., Caribbean expert and Professor of Oceanography, College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida:
"When you look at sonar images, it looks sort of smooth, curved and shades - everything is sort of curvy and shades of curves. It looks smooth. So, when you look at these, you do see things that have very strong reflections along straight edges. There are a lot of those things, like you said, over a field of several kilometers, tens of square kilometers.
AND THAT THESE STRAIGHT EDGES THAT ARE BOTH RECTANGULAR AND SOMEWHAT PYRAMIDAL WITH STRAIGHT EDGES ARE ALL OVER THAT SEVERAL KILOMETERS AREA?
Yes, but again, it could be a very unique geological formation. We just don't know. Until we go there and take a very close look, all it will be is speculation and I would hope that nobody - it's very romantic to think, 'Oh, a lost civilization and ruins and all.' And we all would like to see something like that. But I don't think that it's the right thing to do without actually going there. I think it's great they are actually going to go there and take a closer look. Because just from a geological point of view, it would be very interesting also."
t_t_b
dating... (Score:3, Informative)
(amount of detritus covering) / (rate of detritus fall)
The 6000, I'm sure, is a complete guess given the current amount of available data, but I'm relatively confident of sedimentologists ability to estimate ages. Those dirt geologists rock.
Look at the geology! (Score:5, Interesting)
For a city to sink 2000 feet in 6000 years only requires an average subsidence rate of 4 inches a year. While 4 inches a year sounds high at first, you must all remember that this IS a geologically active area with a number of faults, uplifts, and volcanoes. As an example, in one sunny June afternoon in the late 1600's, the city of Port Royal Jamaica plunged 40 feet below the surface of the sea, killing thousands. That's forty feet in ONE DAY. There have also been foundations and hints of other structures on the Bimini shelf and elsewhere around the Carribean that indicate that these kinds of shoreline changes have ocurred fairly consistently throughout the regions history. A look at shoreline maps of many of the inhabited islands, even over just the past few centuries, CLEARLY shows that some islands no longer exist, while others have drastically changed size or shape. If these kinds of changes can happen over a few hundred years, who knows what's possible over a few thousand? For all we know, this region could be sitting on top of an emptying magma chamber for a volcanic vent, or a section of crust that was relieved of some upward tension and subsided. These situations could easily provide subsidence rates far in excess of what would be needed to get this city to that depth.
To make a long story short, the region of the Caribbean tectonic plate is known to be highly volatile and active, and it is under immense pressure from its larger surrounding neighbors (the North American plate, South American Plate, etc). To assume that one section of it could not have dropped 4" a year ignores both the regions history and gological evidence.
You've also got to remember that there are Mayan legends about the Olmec that sound distinctly Atlantis-like. The legends said that the Olmec were the former rulers of the Yucatan who were centered on a great island in the Caribbean. That island, again according to legend, plunged below the sea and destroyed their civilisation. There are other similar legends throughout Central and South America about the "educators" (like the Viracocha's of the Andes), a people who came among them and taught them construction, farming, and astronomy, and who spoke of their destroyed homeland. Archaeologists have marveled for years at the consistency of these legends from one region to another, and tin-foil-hatters have attributed them to everything from Atlanteans, to the Irish, to space aliens. It's much more realistic to think that these "Viracochas" may have simply been a Caribbean civilisation destroyed when their home area dove beneath the waves.
Re:Look at the geology! (Score:3, Insightful)
>As an example, in one sunny June afternoon in the late 1600's, the city of Port Royal Jamaica plunged 40 feet below the surface of the sea, killing thousands. That's forty feet in ONE DAY.
No, that's 40 feet in one day and 0 feet in 400 years. Cuba would have had to suffer an equally powerful earthquake on average every 120 years over that period to account for the 2000 feet. Is that trend in the very recent geological record for that area - it should be for your premise to be correct.
Geological processes can be very violent, but they also tend to be regular. You can't argue one aspect without at least factoring in the other. 4" subsidence per year is pretty aggressive - I doubt you'd find many instances of such a rate over that kind of a distance, especially underwater, and especially without a volcano being involved.
Re:Look at the geology! (Score:3, Interesting)
I know a lot of geologists who would be quite suprised to learn that these processes are regular. Certainly some geologic activities, such as the uplifting of the Himalayan range or earthquakes along a strike-slip fault, are regular, but history contains many examples of one-off or short-term geologic phenomena. A section of rock stressed by an earthquake 100,000 years ago could slip tomorrow, even though there are no faults in its region. A section of land can rise or subside based on a short term modification of the magma currents below it. These effects and many more are known to geologists, and can cause all kinds of "non-regular" geologic effects. Most competent geologists will tell you that the concept of "slow but steady" geologic change is a myth. The reality is that "slow but steady" is often punctuated by periods of rapid change and deformation.
That said, you made an assumption that countered my conjecture, when in reality we could both be wrong. For all we know, there might be an extinct volcano or volcanic vent in the area that has caused the land to subside. The magma chambers for either of these can become quite large and cause considerable shifts in land elevation and shoreline positions. Until we search the seafloor region surrounding this "city", we won't know with any certainty what may have caused it to reach its current depth.
Honestly though, for a city to plunge 2000 feet in 6000 years, evidence of the subsidence should be fairly obvious once we start looking for it. Deformation of the surface strata should be quite apparent, as would any tilting or warping of the plateau the city rests upon. Geologists should be able to answer the "How" question pretty quickly.
Re:Look at the geology! (Score:3, Interesting)
What I would like to know... (Score:2)
They have a ship (ships?) capable of deploying both side-scan sonar and UROVs - but they call themselves something that has nothing to do with _what_ they do...
To top it off, they are a Canadian (Toronto) based company, but are currently stationed in Havana, Cuba - and are "exploring" areas apparently "known" to be rich in sunken Spanish galleons, many of which went down with treasure (apparently to "test" their sonar devices). Furthermore, they are in some form of a "joint venture" with the Cuban government, namely Castro...
So, do you think when/if they bring up the gold (and/or get funding for this "lost city" venture), the next step will be the laying of redundant fiber links to Central America and Mexico, and the establishment of a real data vault/haven, ala Cryptonomicon [cryptonomicon.com]?
I don't think it is gold they are after...
Re:They just make up a number (Score:2, Funny)
Re:They just make up a number (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, living things take in this carbon isotope as long as they are alive, maintaining a fairly constant level of that carbon isotope. When they die, they no longer take in more of that carbon isotope, and the levels of that isotope diminish at a fixed rate. Carbon dating works by measuring the difference of levels of that carbon isotope in an object against the baseline and then computing the time elapsed based on that difference.
I know of no reason why salt water would change this rate of dimishment of this carbon isotope. But then again, I am neither an archeologist or a physicist.
salt water will not change this rate (Score:2, Informative)
Re:salt water will not change this rate (Score:2)
Re:Graham Hancock (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh and ultimately the Horizons piece was edited and reissued see http://www.grahamhancock.com/horizon/bsc-press_rel ease.htm [grahamhancock.com].
Re:Graham Hancock (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How could this be Atlantis? (Score:2, Funny)
OK.. so it violates the principle of causality in Special Relativity. But as a believer in the Holy Order of Bogodynamics, this just confirms my belief in a FTL communication, mediated by Hog's Bogons. After all, it is thought that ancient civilizations were way ahead of us in technology.
Re:An LDS view... (Score:2, Insightful)
If thats true, then how come there are so many Morons still around? Wouldn't they have all died when the city sank into the ocean? ( and good riddance i might add)