Geology

Geology is one of the many ‘ologies’ brought into play by modern Atlantis studies. Plato records that the stone quarries of Atlantis produced red, white and black rock that was extensively used to adorn the capital port city.

Stone with all these colours are usually associated with volcanic eruptions in the form of tufa, pumice and lava. The Central Mediterranean is home to the most seismically and volcanically unstable region in that entire 2,300 mile long sea.

Plato also notes that “at a later time” following exceptional earthquakes (Tim. 25d), Atlantis was devastated by inundation and the Athenians wiped out by being “swallowed up by the earth”. The proponents of the Iberian Atlantis, such as Diaz-Montexano, will have to explain the geology that would simultaneously cause such destruction at two points separated by over 1,500 miles assuming that if they were that far apart and that the two events were concurrent.

However, the answer may lie in the fact that before Plato the terms ‘Atlantic’ and ‘Pillars of Heracles’ had meanings other than what we understand by them today. The western Mediterranean was known to some as the Atlantic Sea and the straits of Sicily and Messina, between Africa and Italy, were, among other locations, referred to as the Pillars of Heracles. In order to share the consequences of even severe earthquakes would place Atlantis at it nearest to Athens somewhere in the vicinity of Malta, only 500 miles away. There is clear evidence of such seismic convulsions in that region.

Another view of Atlantean geology is offered by Carl Martin^(a). He opts for the Azores as the remnants of Atlantis which was destroyed by post-glacial crustal adjustments. He speculates that Atlantis “might have suffered from the effect of rebound compensation?”, and wonders if it “could  have been “sucked” down to make up for the crustal rise in North America and Northern Europe?”

R. Cedric Leonard also advocates the Azores as Atlantis based mainly on the oceanographic surveys of over half a century ago^(b).>Also in the mid-twentieth century there were still efforts to justify a view of geology and Atlantis based on what are now outdated theories such as the different views held by Hörbiger and Malaise^(d).<

The announcement in May 2013 that part of a previously unknown mini-continent had been found in the Atlantic, 900 miles off the coast of Brazil, immediately got some of the print media linking it to Atlantis^(c). It should be kept in mind that Plato never described Atlantis as a continent, but consistently referred to it as an island, which along with other islands led to a continent. Even today travellers going from Sicily to Southern Italy, refer to going to the ‘continente’.

^(a) https://missionatlantis.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/atlantis-geology-platos-location-perfect/

^(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20161209175953/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Geology.html

^(c) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2320782/The-Brazilian-Atlantis-Geologists-hidden-continent-buried-beneath-Atlantic-Ocean-dating-100-MILLION-YEARS.html

>^(d) Atlantis Vol.7. No.4 May 1954<