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Re: Atlantis - post ice-age flooding of the Med. basin?
p3voices (p3voices@earthlink.net)
Tue, 16 Jul 1996 23:07:43 -0400
This Atlantis discussion thread is just a bit too far beyond left field
to merit much of a reply, as it deals with lost continents, super-
civilizations, etc. Perhaps it was located on Thera - who knows, or will
ever know?
Hopefully we could bring this thread to a bit more interesting and
relevent discussion to this newsgroup. At the end of the ice age, ocean
sea levels increased dramatically. Recent data from a variety of
sources, such as ice core samples, indicates this climatic tranisition
was rather abrupt.
Lowering the sea level during the ice age interfered substantially with
the flow of water into/out of the Straights of Gibraltar by narrowing the
channel. In addition, certain pockets of the Med Sea were isolated and
evaporated (salt beds are found in core samples). As a result, a very
substantial amount of land surface, now underwater, was dry during the
ice-age.
Rapid melting of the glaciers should have resulted in rapid flooding of
these land areas, especially the isolated pockets of dry seafloor which
would have been at lower elevations than the approaching water levels.
This flooding should have had a massive effect on the local climates,
ecologies, etc. As this should have been a dramtic change, human
inhabitants of the areas should have remembered this phenomona in their
mythologies. I don't know if 10k year old mythologies could have
survived till the present, but this could lead to interesting
speculations on flood myths, lost civilizations, etc.
Can anyone bring any real data concerning the flooding of the Med basin
into this discussion? I would be interested in better understanding its
effects on local climates, fauna and human inhabitants.
p3
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