Hübscher of the Institut für Geophysik, Universität Hamburg, Germany, and others of the salt tectonics and mud volcanism within the Cyprus Basin, eastern Mediterranean Sea, demonstrated that the features which Sarmast interprets to be Atlantis consist only of a natural compressional fold caused by local salt tectonics and a slide scar with surficial compressional folds at the downslope end and sides of the slide. Marine and other geologists, who have also studied the bottom of the Cyprus basin, and professional archaeologists completely disagree with his interpretations. However, Sarmast disagrees with mainstream geologists, oceanographers, and paleontologists in arguing that the closing of the Straits of Gibraltar the desiccation and subaerial exposure of the floor of the Mediterranean Sea and its catastrophic flooding has occurred "forty times or more times in its long and turbulent existence" and that "the age of each of these events is unknown." In the same interview, he also contradicts what mainstream geologists, oceanographers, and paleontologists argue in claiming that "Scientists know that roughly 18,000 years ago, there was not just one Mediterranean Sea, but three." However, he does not specify who these scientists are nor does he cite peer-reviewed scientific literature that supports this claim. This whole area was flooded when a ridge collapsed allowing the catastrophic flooding through the Straits of Gibraltar. As a result, its formerly submerged bottom turned into a desert with large saline and brackish lakes. Separated from the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea either partly or completely dried up as the result of evaporation. In part, Sarmast bases his theory that Atlantis can be found offshore of Cyprus beneath 0.9 mile (1.5 km) of water on an abundance of evidence that the Mediterranean Sea dried up during the Messinian Salinity Crisis when its level dropped by 2 to 3 miles (3.2 to 4.9 km) below the level of the Atlantic Ocean as the result of tectonic uplift blocking the inflow of water through the Strait of Gibraltar. As with many other theories concerning the location of Atlantis, Sarmast speculates that its destruction by catastrophic flooding is reflected in the story of Noah's Flood in Genesis. According to his ideas, several characteristics of Cyprus, including the presence of copper and extinct Cyprus dwarf elephants and local place names and festivals (Kataklysmos), support his identification of Cyprus as once being part of Atlantis. He interprets these features as being artificial structures that are part of the lost city of Atlantis as described by Plato. In his book and on his web site, he argues that images prepared from sonar data of the sea bottom of the Cyprus Basin southeast of Cyprus show features resembling man-made structures on it at depths of 1,500 meters. Modern archaeological discoveries have revealed a Mycenaean-era drainage complex and subterranean channels in the lake.Īn American architect, Robert Sarmast, claims that Atlantis lies at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean within the Cyprus Basin. Scranton argued in an article published in Archaeology that Atlantis was the "Copaic drainage complex and its civilization" in Lake Copais, Boeotia. Recent arguments for Akrotiri being Atlantis have been popularized on television in shows such as The History Channel show Lost Worlds episode "Atlantis". The story of Atlantis has been argued to preserve a cultural memory of the Thera eruption, which destroyed the town of Akrotiri and affected some Minoan settlements on Crete. ![]() Clockwise from center: Nea Kameni Palea Kameni Aspronisi Therasia Thera Satellite image of the Island of Thera, also called Santorini.
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