Vladimir Obruchev (1863-1956) was a prominent Soviet geologist and had a mineral, obruchevite, named in his honour. He was also one of Russia’s first science fiction writers, publishing Plutonia in 1924 and was also a leading authority on the civilisations of the Gobi Desert.

He accepted that Plato’s story of Atlantis was ‘plausible’ and believed that from a geological perspective that the submergence of a large landmass in the Atlantic around 11,000 years ago was possible but probably not at the rapid rate recorded by Plato.