Slashdot Mirror
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.
I'm just assuming they just forgot to mention the large bubble over the entire city and the people/aliens who populate it.
>but I do wonder how they assigned the date "of >at least 6000 years ago" to this.
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?
lysergically yours
I like the last couple of quotes from the bbc article:
"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
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."
Celebrate the finer things in life
Any geology types in the house?
If the structures really date back to 6000 years ago there must have been a huge seismic event in that area since then because the water levels have not increased 600 meters since then! The structures must also belong to a civilisation closer to the Incas or Mayas (stone stuctures, pyramids) than their north american counterparts. This is of course if it isn't some kind of underwater lava flow or something (which can take on weird shapes). Sometimes to get funding people will say anything.
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
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
sig?
Shadow...Over.....Innsmouth
An aside: I never thought I'd see the day when this link would be on topic for Slashdot...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Since carbon dating works by measuring the amount of breakdown of a specific carbon isotope (with a known rate of decay) it should work fine underwater.
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.
You can find an interview with Paul Weinzweig from ADC at http://www.earthfiles.com/earth249.htm.
ABC ran a special to promote the new "Atlantis" movie a few months back. It was acutally pretty informative, but one of the tidbits that came out of it was that this place in Cube is starting to be widely beleived to be the location of Atlantis. Supposedly, all the "clues" fit.
"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
"In a press release dated Havana, 14 May 2001 Reuters of London..."
Update on Mysterious Deep Water Sonar Images Off Western Cuba
Underwater City Reported Off Western Cuba
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
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
first interview
second interview
This Globe & Mail article 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.
ian
Of course, I'm sure this will set off a whole new round of newage (rhymes with "sewage") types talking about Atlantis.
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.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
Take a look at this time line 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.
Ia, Ia Cthulhu phtagn
;-)
utter rubbish
"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!"
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Atlantis isn't the only sunken city of myth... But considering the alternatives, If it is a lost mythical city, I'm sure hoping it is Atlantis!!!
Since the explorers are still alive, and wrote the article, it may be safet to presume it may not be R'Lyeh.
Bork!
I wonder if this is a repeat of the oft-"discoved" bimini roads off bermuda. They are a naturally occuring formation that appears to be man made, it has fooled psuedoarchealogists off and on for the last 20 years or so (maybe longer, I don't recall exactly when they were found).
At anyrate here is a link from Paul Heinrich's Wild Side Geoarcheology entry on the Bimini roads:
Bimini Roads And Atlantis
Bimini Columns And Atlantis
Bimini Granite Stones and Atlantis
Just wondering....
Myddrin
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.
See what I've been reading.
I know I am putting my Karma at risk here, with all the Athiest Mods, but creationist out there would probably point to this as possible ruins form the flood.
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...
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
"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
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.
Deep sea detritus, a.k.a. "marine snow", a.k.a., little bity parts of small dead things, fall at a relatively constant rate on the marine floor. Thus, discovering the approximate age of the city could be as simple as
(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.
I see a lot of comments here by people who are skeptical at the veracity of this claim because of the age and depth of the ruins. This skepticism can be easily overcome though, by simply looking at the numbers, the geology of the surrounding area, and geology in general.
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.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.