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UPDATE: In search of a Sunken Island Near Cuba: Evidence for Existence of a Flooded Civilization of “Prehistory ..... Page 19

Science and Investigation
by, Hernán Casares Camera

12,000 years ago, a powerful volcanic eruption sank an island between Yucatan and Cuba, where a "prehistoric" civilization bloomed prior to the Mayan Civilization,according to a scientific theory investigators from several countries will try to demonstrate during an underwater expedition this month.

Deep Worker, the submersible that will be used to take video of the "submerged ruins" off Cuba. Click and drag photo to resize.

Before beginning their project, the archaeologists had to raise $2-million (about R13-million). They set sail from the port of Progreso in eastern Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula.

The scientists will be headed by Canadian engineer Paulina Zelitsky, who discovered vestiges of this island in the year 2000, approximately nine kilometers off the coast of Cabo San Antonio, in Cuba, in international waters and about 18 hours from the Yucatan peninsula by boat.

This Newspaper published a report of that finding the 11th of November of last year. According to that story, investigator Paulina Zelitsky, using her sonar equipment found the remains of a city under the sea, with great buildings, avenues and wharves made of granite.

Like Dzibichaltún

The lack of sufficient, conclusive evidence and the lack of visibility at that great depth did not allow the scientists at that time to form a workable theory on the collapse of a city.

Paulina Zelitsky with Diving Equipment

Four years later, that same team of scientists prepares a new expedition to the zone of the discovery, from Port Progress, in Yacatan, Mexico, to prove a theory of the collapse, that could revolutionize modern archaeology.

Speculation is that the new findings in the sea belong to a city very similar to Dzibichaltún, in Yucatan. Paulina Zelitzky, was interviewed by this newspaper in the dining room of the expeditionary ship, shortly before weighing anchor from Port Progress.

The investigator and her team of collaborators were in Progress from Friday, October 1 to last Thursday October 7 to provision the ship, the Akademik Golitsyn and to assemble the international team of scientific researchers. Thereafter, she will direct them to the zone of the discovery.

Volcanos

The collapse of that island happened by the eruption of a volcano. According to the scientist’s theory, 15,000 years ago the Yucatan peninsula and Cuba were united by a land bridge in the form of a mountain range. Paulina Zelitsky and her collaborators discovered that this same mountain range still exists now, but under the sea.

No one pays particular attention or focuses on the importance of under ocean volcanos, even though the Canadian scientist believes in response to our query that they could potentially be even more dangerous than surface volcanos.

The investigation intends to demonstrate that in the past the volcanic activity between Yucatan and Cuba was catastrophic and that in the future such a major event could be repeated.

The studies will also verify the antiquity of Mayan Culture and its presumed origins here and that of other cultures, like the Olmec, as well as provide evidence forcontact between inhabitants of that long sunken island, Cuba and South America.

Atlantis

First in arriving at the coast of the Gulf of Mexico were the Olmecs, who soon founded Sale, in Tabasco. According to the oral tradition of that culture, their predecessors identified their origin in an island that disappeared, called” A tlan you cu ' ".

The tracks of this island were discovered by pure chance, as it may be revealed in the next few weeks, when engineer Zelitsky’s second expedition concludes.

Fortuitous Finding

In 2000 she and a Canadian crew headed an expedition to look for petroleum in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. When they tracked the marine bottom the scientists found an unusual, intriguing image: great constructions of stone, perfectly aligned under the water, on an extension of several thousands of square meters.

These constructions seemed polished, formed by not by limestone as might be expected. The images showed, very great stones, aligned in symmetrical form, very well organized assembly, as if they were the result of city-planning and sitting on a volcanic crystal sediment, very fine, like sand.

The scientists saw, to a side of those constructions, something similar to streets, avenues, bays and structures similar to wharves of some port. They understood that the material of the constructions and the volcanic crystal of the floor could not be formed at this great depth (2,200 feet) under the sea but rather, on the surface, in contact with oxygen.

Something Strange

Paulina Zelitzky remembers now that at first we thought when seeing those images were that we had run into with something strange and highly unusual, but we did not know what it was.

The Akademik Golitsyn. Click and drag photo to resize.

But as the curiosity kills the cat, initially I never thought about finding or looking for another explanation. Six months later, while we reviewed our photographs of the bottom of the sea in my offices, I raised my eyes and happened to see a calendar with photographs of some Mayan ruins. Suddenly, it all fell into place: some of the photos were identical to those we had discovered deep under the sea and, therefore, probably were vestiges of a prehistoric structure.

Cataclysm

I at heart see a great similarity between our findings under the sea and the structure and characteristics of some monuments of the archaeological zone of Dzibichaltún, asserted the scientist.

Our geologist, doctor Manuel Iturralde, an internationally recognized authority in this field, suggested that the recently discovered structures could belong to an island located between Cuba and Yucatan, which was sunk 10,000 or 12,000 years because of a seismic cataclysm.

An indication that this cataclysm did occur and collapsed the entire surface are the stones we extracted from the ocean which showed concentrations of fossilized animals, specifically of escaramujos, a crustacean that lives solely to two meters of depth. How do we explain its presence at 900 meters of depth?

I don’t want to appear to be a fortune teller said the investigator, but I believe there will prove to be sufficient scientific evidence to confirm our theory that there, near Cuba, is a sunken island, containing the remains of a prehistoric civilization?

Source: Merida:Electronic Edition of the Diary of Yucatan, October 9, 2004