Earthquake *

Published May 26, 2010

An earthquake, not a volcanic eruption resulted in the inundation of Atlantis according to Plato’s account. Although, for those who believe that the destruction of ancient Santorini was the inspiration behind Plato’s Atlantis story, it is not difficult to imagine an earthquake accompanying an eruption such as that which occurred on Thera in the 2nd millennium BC, particularly in an area that had been prone to frequent earthquakes over thousands of years.

My reading of Plato’s description of the demise of Atlantis is that there is no suggestion whatsoever of a volcanic eruption causing its destruction, which rules out the Minoan Hypothesis. Instead, Plato describes it as sinking into a shallow watery grave following an earthquake. Many commentators have suggested that this was the result of a tsunami generated by the earthquake, which can be a common occurrence. Usually, flood waters created by tsunamis eventually return to the sea, exposing the land again. So I have concluded that the most likely explanation is that Atlantis sank as a result of liquefaction, which can accompany earthquakes, depending on the type of soil upon which structures have been built.

Stavros Papamarinopoulos at the 2005 Atlantis Conference highlighted^(h) the part played by earthquakes in the description of the ancient Athenian Acropolis in the Atlantis narrative, which he saw as a part of a 50-year ‘seismic storm’ which ravaged the Eastern Mediterranean around the 12th century BC ^[629.499]. Amos Nur & Eric H. Cline have written about this period of intense seismic activity in a paper on the Academia.edu website^(l).

Later, in 365 AD, a massive earthquake near Crete, killed thousands, caused damage in Alexandria and submerged the Roman city of Neapolis on the east coast of Tunisia, which has only recently been rediscovered^(j). On Crete, some land was uplifted by as much as 30 feet.

However, earthquakes in the region have continued ever since. Dr. Iain Stewart recounts how an earthquake in Greece in the 5th century BC led to the death of 20,000 Spartans⁽ⁱ⁾.

Earthquakes were once thought to be a form of divine retribution, so when an earthquake in 1570, caused death, damage, and the alteration of the River Po’s course, ‘infallible’ Pope Pius V declared it to be the consequence of god’s wrath against the Jews!^(b)

A Ph.D. Dissertation by Jamie Rae Bluestone investigates early understanding of earthquakes, which inevitably touches on the Atlantis story^(a).

A recent paper by Marc-Andre Gutscher discussed the Cadiz subduction zone, which appears to be ‘locked’ and consequently liable to generate very strong earthquakes over long return periods. Gutscher offered evidence of deposits dated to 12000 BC which ‘may correspond to the destructive earthquake and tsunami described by Plato’. However, he recognised that Plato describes a Bronze Age society, while Spartel Island in the Strait of Gibraltar would only have been inhabited by ‘simple fishermen’ unlikely to have merited a mention in the records of the Egyptian priests.

In the Mediterranean, the Aegean and Turkey are the most seismically active, followed by Italy (including Sicily)^(f) and North Africa from Morocco to Tunisia. There is a European Earthquake Catalogue that graphically illustrates earthquake activity over the past 1,000 years^(e). Italy is also home to most of the active volcanoes in the Med.

Ben Davidson, promotes the idea that earthquakes are caused by solar activity ^(c) and offers what he considers compelling evidence on a YouTube clip^(d).

Up-to-date earthquake information is available on the Geofon website^(g).

A recent (April 2022) report^(k) offered evidence “For the biggest earthquake in human history”……. “a terrifying magnitude-9.5 megaquake that caused a 5,000-mile-long (8,000 kilometers) tsunami and prompted human populations to abandon nearby coastlines for 1,000 years.

The earthquake struck about 3,800 years ago in what is now northern Chile when a tectonic plate rupture lifted the region’s coastline. The subsequent tsunami was so powerful, it created waves as high as 66 feet (20 meters) and traveled all the way to New Zealand, where it hurled car-size boulders hundreds of miles inland, the researchers found.”

[The words ‘seismology’ and ‘epicentre’ were coined in 1858 by an Irishman, Robert Mallet (1810-1881)]

^(a) https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/99438/Bluestone_umn_0130E_11718.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

^(b) https://www.newser.com/story/211354/medieval-quake-rocked-city-moved-big-river-forever.html

^(c) https://www.suspicious0bservers.org/

^(d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBvo7lvf

^(e) https://www.emidius.eu/SHEEC/catalogue/

^(f)https://gisetc.com/european-earthquake-risk-concentrated-around-the-mediterranean/

^(g) https://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/eqinfo/eqinfo.php

^(h) https://www.2009-q-conf-kandersteg.grazian-archive.com/platoandtheseism/papamarinopoulos-newversionof2009.pdf

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/atlantis_01.shtml

^(j) Submerged Ancient Roman City Of Neapolis Discovered In Tunisia (archive.org) *

^(k)Scientists find evidence for biggest earthquake in human history | Live Science