Researchers in Spain have exposed misplaced islands that sank into the sea thousands and thousands of years in the past, a few of which nonetheless have their seashores intact.”This may well be the foundation of the Atlantis legend,” Luis Somoza, the pinnacle of a undertaking to check volcanic process off the Canary Islands, advised Are living Science in an e-mail.The group discovered the islands on a seamount, or underwater mountain, which comprises 3 now inactive volcanoes and is ready 31 miles (50 kilometers) in diameter. Its base is ready 1.4 miles (2.3 km) underneath the outside of the sea.Scientists dubbed the newfound seamount Mount Los Atlantes after Plato’s fabled civilization that the gods plunged into the sea as a punishment for its voters’ immorality.Comparable: Scientists uncover historical, underwater volcano remains to be lively — and lined in as much as one million massive eggs”They had been islands prior to now and they’ve sunk, they’re nonetheless sinking, because the legend of Atlantis tells,” Somoza, a geologist with the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME-CSIC), stated in a translated observation.Scientists discovered Mount Los Atlantes whilst exploring the seabed off the east coast of Lanzarote, the easternmost of the Canary Islands, the use of a remotely operated automobile (ROV) at depths of between 330 and eight,200 ft (100 to two,500 m). The dive was once a part of IGME-CSIC’s Atlantis undertaking, which goals to raised perceive underwater volcanic and hydrothermal process within the area.Get the arena’s most enticing discoveries delivered directly on your inbox.
Shut up view of the summit of Los Atlantes, a seamount containing 3 inactive volcanoes. (Symbol credit score: IGME-CSIC)Los Atlantes would were a chain of islands right through the Eocene (56 million to 34 million years in the past). As soon as the volcanoes stopped erupting, the lava solidified and turned into denser, inflicting the islands to sink into the sea. However one of the vital options of those misplaced islands stay.”We’ve known seashores, cliffs and sand dunes on the flat summit of the seamount,” Somoza advised Are living Science, including that the sand that now covers the volcanic rock would were deposited when the islands had been actively sinking.One of the vital seashores take a seat simply 200 ft (60 m) underneath the oceans’ floor. Throughout the ultimate ice age, when sea ranges had been some distance not up to they’re as of late, the inactive volcanoes would have transform islands once more. “Those islands may, then, be used for inhabiting natural world,” he stated. When sea ranges rose because the ice age ended, they sank once more.The group will now analyze the samples accumulated from Los Atlantes to this point the volcanic rocks and pinpoint when the islands began to sink, Somoza stated. Additionally they plan to go back to the submarine volcanoes of the Canary Islands right through an expedition subsequent yr.
