This article is about whether Atlantis existed and the possible locations of Atlantis. 10,000 years BC water levels were lower than they were today. The legend of Atlantis was in existence around 9600 B.C. before it was claimed to fall into the sea. Ancient Greece was not in existence around this time, so accounts of Greece interacting with Atlantis may be fictional, but based on other accounts.
There are hypothesis to the location of ancient Atlantis, or whether it really ever existed.
Is Atlantis fiction?
Plato's account seems like fiction. Ancient Greece came into existence around the 9th century B.C, and Atlantis was around in 9,600 B.C. Did the histories of these two civilizations cross paths?
Plato's account could be of a real Atlantis, but of a fictional Greek interaction with this civilization.
Could Plato have combined Santorini's geological and civilization history with a real account of Atlantis, to fabricate a new fiction?
Aristotle mentions Plato creating fables of civilizations then destroying them.
Rise in sea level
Could the Azores Plateau or Islands be the ancient location of Atlantis? This plateau is located over a rift where tectonic plates pull apart from each other. Could the separation of these plate masses have caused this plateau to sink?
Hypothesis by J. Garner PhD
The original discussion of the Azores as a location for Atlantis began on the Azores site. It evolved over a period of several years, beginning in 2009. Geological correlation started to become apparent to me. Although correlation cannot be used as direct evidence, the evidence seems to be accumulating and science seems to be providing increasing research to uphold this hypothesis. It was moved here so that the discussion might continue, with people discussing not the evidence that Atlantis was located somewhere other than the Azores, and at another time, but that Atlantis was located exactly where Plato said it was located and it existed exactly when he said that it existed. My Master's Degree is in Physics, and my Doctorate is in Education. As time permits, I will add items to support this hypothesis. Thanks,
The more that one studies super-volcanoes the more one understands that the Azores Islands and the sunken caldera of the supervolcano there presents a unique geological formation on the Planet Earth.
There is simply no other geological formation that comes close to mimicking this one. First, you DO have a supervolcano, and it is currently as active as the one at Yellowstone National Park in America. Except, this one is under water.
Furthermore, it is on the mid-Atlantic rift where new seafloor is being formed. In addition, it is at the intersection of the North American Plate, the European Plate and the African Plate.
Claiming that deep sea cores from millions of years ago proves that it has been underwater for millions of years is not quite accurate. You see, the Alps mountains have evidence that they were once the floor of a sea bed. This old Earth is a restless lady. If ground can go up it certainly can subside also, especially in an area of a unique geologic formation that science is only beginning to understand.
As I stated above in 2009, there is little research into the Azores as a location for Atlantis, but claims abound that place it's location at numbers of other places that Plato didn't even mention. The geologic formations are in the Azores to support Plato's story.
Furthermore, this website, http://www.cvarg.azores.gov.pt/seismic/index.html documents the current activity of the Supervolcano in the Azores and it is just as active as the Supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in the USA. The only difference is that it is deep on the floor of the ocean. It is a collapsed caldera and it is still active.
Why can't Plato's documentation be accepted as written. After all, we still study his philosophy. But when it comes to his historical writings, established does everything that it can to deny the possibility that Atlantis is right where Plato said it was. This is not spiritual mumbo-jumbo. It is not an Edgar Cayce prediction. It is a written record from one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived.
Furthermore, Plato describes in perfect detail the scientific description of a supervolcanic eruption. How would he know this? It is time to shake of the bonds of gradualism and to realize that the last ice age ended at the time that Plato says the eruption occurred. There is evidence spectacular mass extinctions and there is evidence of catastrophic climate change at that time also.
This subject deserves discussion and research. Just saying it didn't happen on the flimsiest of evidence is not science, it is denial.
In evidence of Plato's description of Atlantis, the ground and the city, surrounded by concentric rings of land and rings of water or canals, all navigable from an ocean bay one can see that this is a rough description of a collapsed volcanic caldera. http://geology.com/articles/caldera/ Also, see http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Calderas.html
It is an accepted fact that a 'hot spot' exists that has created the Hawaiian Island Chain. http://www.hawaii.edu/environment/ainakumuwai/html/ainakumuwaiislandformation.htm However, what might happen if this spot corresponded exactly with a rift zone?
With the two descriptions given picture a 'hot spot' passing under a rift zone. Is this what could have happened to Atlantis?
Might a 'hot spot' such as the one at Yellowstone or the one close to Iceland moving under a rift zone cause a portion of a plate to break off and have enough magma extruded from under it to cause it to collapse into the ocean?
The relatively new revelation that Supervolcanoes exist and have erupted in the past should cause the curious, the truly scientific minds, to re-examine Plato as a historian in addition to a philosopher. This especially true because his descriptions of the topography of Atlantis correspond with modern geological descriptions of how the Earth works. Plato did not know this, so how could it be made up?
With the discovery of a Supervolcano near Vesuvius, These volcanoes are not rare. But people still build castles and cities on top of the 'plugs' in their vents...
What a gorgeous castle. Just like the main castle Plato described...
- J. Garner PhD. aka RAYLEIGH22
Seewarte Seamounts are a cluster of seamounts in the Northern Atlantic that include Plato, and Atlantis Seamounts, understood to be just named after the legend.
Could the straits have been between Italy and Africa, instead of the straight of Gibraltar, thus making Atlantis location the western Mediterranean. If this were the case, Sardinia and Spain are candidates for Atlantis' location.
- Atlantis, History Channel, http://www.history.com/topics/atlantis
- Changing Sea Level and the Evolution of the Coastal Environment, http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/coast/prehistory/images/sea-level.html