Posted on 02/15/2004 4:03:44 PM PST by blam
Scientists discover lost world
A prehistoric lost world under the North Sea has been mapped by scientists from the University of Birmingham. The team used earthquake data to devise a 3D reconstruction of the 10,000-year-old plain.
The area, part of a land mass that once joined Britain to northern Europe, disappeared about 8,000 years ago.
The virtual features they have developed include a river the length of the Thames which disappeared when its valley flooded due to glaciers melting.
This is the most exciting and challenging virtual reality project since Virtual Stonehenge.
Professor Bob Stone
Professor Bob Stone, head of the Department of Engineering's Human Interface Technology Team, said they were working to ensure the visual accuracy of the environment.
"This is the most exciting and challenging virtual reality project since Virtual Stonehenge in 1996.
"We are basing the computer-generated flora on pollen and plant traces extracted from geological core samples retrieved from the sea bed."
Dr Vincent Gaffney, director of the University's Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity and lead investigator on the project said they still had a lot of work to do.
"We intend to extend the project to visualise the whole of the now submerged land bridge that previously joined Britain to northern Europe as one land mass, providing scientists with a new insight into the previous human occupation of the North Sea."
Coincidence? You decide.
Not just in the orphaned Mediterranean and Black Sea basis, either. If sea level was 300' lower in the North Sea, it was probably 300' lower in the Gulf of Mexico, as well.
Of course Atlantis is true. Plato wrote about it. Yeah, I know the mad rush to equate Atlantis with Thera but come on, Plato wrote about it, and I don't buy the excuse that well, Plato could have gotten one thing wrong. Plato wrote about it ...
Or more. The principle of isostacy says that if the weight of the glaciers pressed arctic lands down, non-arctic lands would have risen to keep the volume of the earth the same. So the apparent drop in sea level would have been greater towards the equator.
Plato also wrote about the pleasures of gay sex. Of course he couldn't have been wrong about that....
And even the name of that land perished, and Men spoke thereafter not of Elenna, nor of Andor the Gift that was taken away, nor of Numenore on the confines of the world; but the exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabeth the Downfallen, Atalante in the Eldarin tongue.
[The Silmarillion, Akallabeth, JRR Tolkien]
Isostacy. What a great word!
The geologic equivalent of "regressing to the mean"...
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Gee. There's nothing to this Biblical Noah's Arc stuff. How could a flood possibly affect the whole world?
Here's an interesting site. This National Geographic web site takes this particular news item a bit more global. It's about Ballard's quest to find underwater archeological sites in the Black Sea that could shed light on the great flood, particularly related to the story of Noah's flood and the legend of Gilgamesh. The tie to this thread is:
Almost every culture on Earth includes an ancient flood story. Details vary, but the basic plot is the same: Deluge kills all but a lucky few.
• The story most familiar to many people is the biblical account of Noah and his ark. Genesis tells how “God saw that the wickedness of man was great” and decided to destroy all of creation. Only Noah, “who found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” his family, and the animals aboard the ark survived to repopulate the planet.
• Older than Genesis is the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, a king who embarked on a journey to find the secret of immortality. Along the way, he met Utnapishtim, survivor of a great flood sent by the gods. Warned by Enki, the water god, Utnapishtim built a boat and saved his family and friends, along with artisans, animals, and precious metals.
• Ancient Greeks and Romans grew up with the story of Deucalion and Pyhrra, who saved their children and a collection of animals by boarding a vessel shaped like a giant box.
• Irish legends talk about Queen Cesair and her court, who sailed for seven years to avoid drowning when the oceans overwhelmed Ireland.
• European explorers in the Americas were startled by Indian legends that sounded similar to the story of Noah. Some Spanish priests feared the devil had planted such stories in the Indians’ minds to confuse them.
I wonder if, just maybe, there's a bit more than we "enlightened" modern folk might have figured out by now? Just because Jerry Falwell can't find his butt with both hands most of the time doesn't mean that the Bible is wrong. I've always felt that any "conflict" between scripture and science was in our understanding, not in the word of God or in the scientific facts. Either we've interpreted the Bible wrong or we've got our Scientific facts wrong. "God is wrong" and "science is wrong" are neither acceptable statements. "Humans can screw it up every time" is always a safe bet.
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