Atlantis?
Some scientists havefound some ancient islands deep underwater in the Atlantic Ocean. Some expertsbelieve the drowned landmasses may be the potential inspiration for thewell-known myth of Atlantis. They have even gone so far as to call the find “LostAtlantes”, after the fabled civilization that the gods drowned.
Some of these islandsstill have their beaches intact. They are located on an underwater mountainlocated around 1.4 miles (2.3 km) underwater off the coast of Lanzarote in theCanary Islands.
Researchers say that 56to 34 million years ago, Los Atlantes was a series of islands topped by 3 nowinactive volcanoes. When the volcanoes stopped erupting, the lava solidifiedand became denser, causing the islands to sink into the sea.
Despite the passing ofmillions of years, the islands have retained distinctive features, such asbeaches, cliffs and sand dunes at the flat summit of the mountain. The sandwhich now covered the volcanic rock would have been deposited as the islandsdescended into the water.
Some of the beaches lieonly 200 ft (60 meters) below the oceans’ surface. During the last ice age,when sea levels were far lower than today, the inactive volcanoes would havebecome islands again. These islands could have been colonized by wildlife, oreven early people. When the ice age ended and sea levels rose, the islands sankagain.
In my opinion, if therewere people living on these islands during the last ice age, and at least someof them escaped when the sea levels rose, I’m sure they couldn’t resist tellinganybody they met about their escape. Such a tale, handed down from generationto generation, could have easily become the myth we still know today.
