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Ancient Sunken City Discovered Off Shores of Cuba. Maybe
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.
"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
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
In 1960 the most powerful earthquake of the 20th century moved the Chilean coast 60 feet in 5 minutes.h tm
http://www.extremescience.com/GreatestEarthquake.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/tsunamis/chile/
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
http://www.acerca.org/ejd1_results1.html
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
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.
-f
www.blackant.net
Time to put that Archaeology class I took in College to use.
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.
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.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
Being a former archaeologist, I can tell you that this 6,000 year date is bogus. They used a ROV and took NOTHING back to the surface. What would they carbon date?
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.
I forget...are we at war with Eurasia or East Asia?