In our opinion during the Ice Age the territory of Atlantis embraced the North Atlantic Ridge up to the Romanche Trench including the Azores Plateau. The northern boundery of Atlantis presents a difficult problem; in the south boundary was the Romanche Trench. The bathymetry of the ocean in the region of the juncture between the North Atlantic and the Reykjanes ridges is very important. The latter, explored by German expiditions up to the 57th parallel, is, in our opinion, a direct extension of the North Atlantic Ridge. A map published in 1956 by the American National Geographic Society (edited by J. C. La Gorce) shows abyssal hollows on either side of the ridge roughly at the 53rd parallel; there the ridge is exceedingly narrow. On the latest Soviet map (1 : 2,000,000), published in 1963 and edited by L. K. Zatonsky, this hollow is shown north of the Faraday Hills and cutting the ridge from north to south at a depth of 3,000-3500 meters. We feel that immense importance attaches to the question of the hollow separating the Reykjanes Ridge from the North Atlantic Ridge. Its existence leads one to the surmise that in this spot there might be a submarine canyon throughout which the river systems of America and Europe might have communicated as late as the end of the Miocene and in the Pliocene (295a ). Secondly this hollow is indirect testimony in favor of the view that these ridges differ from each other. Considerations about the distribution of ocean currents towards the end of the Ice Age bring us round to the conclusion that there was a straight separating Atlantis from Great Iceland.
Atlantis may be pictured as a meridionally situated continent sooner long than wide and consisting of three main parts: a wide northern island on the foundation of the Azores Plateau—Poseidonis or Azoris: and a long narrow southern island—Antillia—and the Equatorial Archipelago, of which St. Paul’s Rocks are a remnant. At the 31st parallel between Poseidonis and Antillia there was a narrow straits which we have named the Poseidon Straits. One or several narrow straits probably separated Antillia from the Equitorial Archipelago between the 5th and 10th parallels.
Along the western fringe of these islands, running almost meridionally, there was a great mountain system—the North Atlantic Ridge. Submarine today, but in those days it had peaks rising to a height of two or three kilometers, or even higher. In the north of Poseidonis was a second mountain range of Atlantis. At present forming the Azores Islands this was the Azores Ridge and it was probably and integral mountain system. In the south of the Azores Plateau, running nearly parallel to the Azores Ridge, there was a chain consisting of several groups of mountains separated from each other by saddles. The groups closest to the North Atlantic Ridge have been names Atlantis Mountains by us; the Plato Mountains form their southeastern extension—we have named these mountains partially in conformity with the Heezen-Tharp physiographical chart (417 ). The main kingdom of Plato’s legend was evidently situated somewhere here, perhaps between the two latitudinal ranges, but sooner south of the Atlantis and Plato mountains.
A somewhat different view is offered by the noted Sweedish atlantologist Dr. Réne Malaise. In a letter to the author of this work on May 19, 1968 he writes: The Danish engineer M. Frandsen (153a ) was looking at a depth chart of the Azores and observed that at a depth of 600-700 fathoms above the surrounding sea-bottom there was an even plateau to the south of the islands. This plateau is sheltered from the north by the present Azores with their summits 4,000-5,000 meters higher than it, and to the west by the main range. To the southwest the plateau is limited by a somewhat lower mountain swell studded with high, flat-topped, now submarine sea mounts. The most prominent of these sea mounts have been named by American oceanographers Atlantis, Plato, Cruiser and Great Meteor. The horizontal plateau-land is clearly visible on plate 22 [Heezen, Tharp and Ewing (417 )] on the ‘Transatlantic Topographic Profile I’ (between the Atlantic Seamount and the Island of São Miguel). As an experiment, Frandsen made a sketch with the measurements of the Atlantis plain given by Plato, vis., 400 by 600 kilometers (Frandsen counted a stadius = 200 meters) and on the same scale as the chart. It fitted very well to the submarine plateau-land of the chart. By studying the depth curves he found the declination of the plateau to be on an average 1:900; the plateau consisted accordingly of a real plain of a size about 2/3 of present-day Finland. On his sketch he drew in the contours of the mentioned canals and the circular ditch and likewise the squared lots of ’ten stadia each way’. According to Plato the surrounding ditch had a length of ten thousand stadia (≈2,000 kilometers [1,850 kilometers]) and the number of squared lots was 60,700, an acceptable difference. Having worked with irrigation I open and closed canals for thirty years he wanted to control the declination of the water-level in the canals if adequate. He found the fall of the water to be 1 : 300 and 1 : 600,, which according to modern principles is acceptable, although barely for the last figure. The current in the canals was accordingly too slow to cause any difficulties of navigation for the row-galleys of the time.”
However, according to O. K. Leontyev, who supports the ocean permanency and expanding continents theories, “from the stand-point of marine geology and geomorphology there are no grounds for surmising that Atlantis existed here”. As one can see, Leontyev ignores all the facts clashing with his theories upheld by him: for example, the basaltic and andesite volcanic activity on the Azores islands and plateau, the existence on the latter of cut terrace at a depth of 1,000 meters, and a series of other data given in the preceding chapters.
There are some grounds for believing that from the north and down to the 40th parallel Poseidonis was partially under glaciers. This surmise rests on the fact that boulders and sediments of glacial origin have been found approximately up to this latitude from the eastern side of the North Atlantic Ridge and the Azores. On the chart referenced to by J. Wiseman and C. Ovey (704 ) some of these finds are attributed to the Greenland and British glaciers. However, the finding of a boulder east of the North Atlantic Ridge is strange to say the least. Wiseman and Ovey consider that it is of French origin, which we doubt very much. We consider it quite probable that when Atlantis existed some of its mountain peaks were covered with glaciers during the Ice Age, and that these glaciers could have served as the source of drift ice. We are quite positive that in the collection of samples taken from the eastern slope of the North Atlantic Ridge by the Lamont Observatory expedition there are glacier-eroded basalt rocks originating directly from the ridge itself. It is also quite possible that similar samples may be found in the collections of other oceanographic expeditions.
We have attempted to create a physiographic chart of Poseidonis (66 ) on the basis of the physiographic chart of the North Atlantic compiled by Heezen and Tharp (417 ). Regrettably, when we were making the reconstruction we could not avail ourselves of the latest data about the spurs of the North Atlantic Ridge that were discovered some years ago by various expeditions but not entered into the charts of the Atlantic floor.
In the North Poseidonis separated from the ice-bound island of Great Iceland, which in those times embraced the Reykjanes Ridge. This island appeared after the disintegration of the Atlantic Sill. On the other hand, the Rockall Plateau existed in that period in the shape of a huge ice-covered island or, much earlier, as a large peninsula that somewhere at the beginning of the Pleistocene united the entire subarial Atlantic Sill, Greenland, Iceland and the Faeroes. We have some justification for naming this ice-covered land Hyperborea, in memory of the legendary Hyperborean people who lived far in the north.
The British Isles were an unbroken land mass, a peninsula extending from France; Porcupine Bank was a Peninsula linked to Ireland. Most of the North Sea was a land area where the highest point was the Dogger Plateau. The English Channel was a river.
In the west, Atlantis was washed by the semi-inland Bermuda Sea; in the north of this sea the Great Newfoundland island or peninsula with a chain of shoals and banks and a spur of Atlantis as well as an island archipelago north of the Bermudas served as a barrier to the massive northward penetraton of the Proto-Gulf Stream. This was mainly a ring stream and it was much smaller than today because at least half of the Antilles Current was prevented from flowing westward by Antillia Island. Moreover, from time to time the Gulf Stream was supplanted by a powerful cold current flowing from the north and, possibly, partially through the straits between Newfoundland and Labrador. This cold current, whose existence is proven by paleobotanical data on the coastal vegetation of New England, evidently (in the shape of a submarine stream) penetrated even the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea; this is also borne out by the fact that the Florida Peninsula appeared in the very recent geological past.
An analysis of cores from the floor of these basins has shown the presence of eleven layers of cold-and warmth-loving foraminifera (635 ). This, we feel, is evidence in favor of the surmise that there was tectonic instability in the region of Florida and Great Newfoundland (where violent earthquakes take place to this day, for example, the earthquake of 1929). The Caribbean Sea was probably much smaller in those days due to considerable and now submerged land areas, including the land areas of the Antilles, that were a peninsula (264 /391 ; 616 ). These subsidences occurred within man’s memory, as testified by many legends current among the natives of the Antilles (17 ; 57 ).
The Bermuda Islands and the now submarine archipelagoes in their vicinity were fairly large islands. A branch of the Proto-Gulf Stream flowed past them, creating favorable conditions for the then most northerly development of corals. However, some scientists believe that a branch of the Proto-Gulf Stream penetrated as far north as the 35th parallel (where coral remains have also been discovered). This is probably connected with subsidences in the region of these islands.
East of Atlantis, between it and Europe, there were some semi-island seas, whose number and configuration it is at present difficult to determine because, in our opinion, this part of the North Atlantic was subjected to intensive tectonic activity and frequent subsidences. The shallow Iceland Sea was possibly still in existence between Reykjanes Peninsula and Rockall Island. A small branch of the Gulf Stream, divided by the Reykjanes Peninsula, flowed through this sea along the eastern shores of Great Iceland to the Norwegian Sea. The narrow Irish Strait between Rockall Island anf the British Peninsula, enabled the cold current from the Norwegian Sea to flow to the south. Part of the Gulf Stream that reached this sea transported icebergs and icefloes as the cold Irish Current, which farther became the Proto-Canary Current. The cold Irish Current flowed into the Biscay Sea, where icebergs abounded.
It must be pointed out that cold-loving Yoldia and high-Arctic mollusks have been found on the floor of the modern Bay of Biscay (269 /373 ). This can only be explained by the subarial existence of the North Atlantic Ridge (i.e. Atlantis) with glaciers on it and on the more northerly islands (particularly Rockall Island). It will be recalled that the English Channel was non-existent at the time.
The Biscay Sea was much smaller than the present day gulf due to the existence of a vast mountainous land to the southwest of Britain and to the southeast of France (Estrimnides). Atlantis was closest to Europe at two points, where one can assume there was a chain of islands between it and Europe. The first, in the north, lay in the direction of Porcupine Peninsula, where near the mountain range there probably was a plateau similar to the Azores Plateau. The second, southern point, was between the present Azores Islands and Cape São Vincente in Portugal to the southwest of which stretched a large archipelago; numerous banks have taken the place of this archipelago. We have named it the Erytheia Archipelago. The chain of islands stretching from this archipelago to Atlantis ran along the now submerged Azores-Gibralter Ridge. Some of the islands of this archipelago were fairly large and possibly existed until recorded times (Erytheia, Scheria, Tartessos).
The sea east of Atlantis was the source of the great cold Proto-Canary Current. However, its massive penetration towards the shores of Africa was hindered by the Erytheia Archipelago. Therefore, between Atlantis and Portugal the Proto-Canary Current turned into a ring stream and only part of it broke through to the shores of Atlantis, passing between the present-day islands of Terceira and Santa Maria. Gradually moving away from the shores of Atlantis, this part of the current flowed along the ocean surface almost up to the equator. A small cold branch passed between the islands of the Erytheia Archipelago. But the Proto-Canary Current, like the Canary Current today, never reached the shores of Africa, and the climate in the Sahara was, therefore, more humid. In those days the modern Canary and Cape Verde Islands were integral land areas with shallow straits separating them from the continent. A branch of the ring East Equatorial Current approached them, making the climate of north-western Africa warmer and more humid.
At the equator there was the Equatorial Archipelago, whose islands approached quite close to the shores of both South America and Africa. This archipelago was probably a remnant of the intercontinental bridge of Miocene times. When it was in existence it was probably not very difficult for primitive man to travel between the Old and the New World. In this area the largest land mass was situated near St. Paul’s Rocks. A somewhat smaller island was located to the northwest on the presently submerged Sierra Leone Ridge (where fresh-water diatoms have been found). The Romanche Trench is accepted as the southern boundary of Atlantis. Therefore, the southern extremity of Atlantis did not stretch across the equator. The warm current flowing through these regions (the East Equatorial Current) can hardly be called North Equatorial since it had its source north of the 10th parallel and flowed in a ring, washing the southeastern shore of Atlantis and the northern shores of the Equatorial Archipelago; the East Sargasso Sea was located in these places.
ain't that the truth. Give a pencil to a monkey and it will probably use it to get at ants, if it doesn't hurt itself with it.
