We have discussed the submarine megaliths offshore at Cuba, discovered by Paulina Zelitski and Paul Weinzweig a few times here and a long time ago. Many near pefect symmetrical stone structures on the bottom of the sea, resembling old Mexican inca like structures Is it natural or man made (city). As it is deemed physically impossible to have human cities down at 700 meters in the sea, it must be natural. However if it is natural, the structures must be of local bedrock. There was a hint of granite versus local bedrock being limestone and we were left with the uncertainty. There seems to be news, unfortunately, it is not in the form of approved peer reviewed scientific articles, so we need verification but: http://www.marsearthconnection.com/cuba.html So things seem certainly be heading towards the utmost impossible. There must be an explanation.
The reference to the granite being 'completely polished' concerns me a little. It's been underwater for thousands of years. If it still has a polished surface, and the only marine encrustrations on it are from surface dwelling creatures, rather than pelagic ones, it suggests it may not have been down there very long? But of course the description given in the interview may be lisleading. We really need to see pictures of the recovered samples. Actually, another thought occurs to me: could these actually be ballast (or cargo) from a sunken ship?
All kind of speculation is possible of course. Don't worry about that "polished". It could be "polished" by natural vectors. After all the megaliths are definitely showing erosion on the pictures. Cargo or ballast, the whole 7 mile square area? Ballast blocks are usually smaller than the 7-10 feet sizes that those stones seem to be, or did they manage to pick up exactly that one piece of ballast between the megaliths? I guess we have to wait for the whole story.
maybe i city got blasted into the ocean from a volcanic eruption, wasnt there a north american volcanic eruption about 10000 years ago? it could have been from taupo, but i doubt the debri would fly that far, it was proposed however thta there was an aryan like race living here before the maori
The problem here is that the city looks quite undamaged. Volcanic explosions, Landslides, Caldera forming, Tectonic related earthquakes etc would have damaged the city, probably beyond recognition So we are looking for a non catastrophic event. Subsidence is a possibility that could happen to balance the forces on the Earth lithosphere (Isostacy). However there are a few problems with that. The maximum speed of isostatic movements is thought to be 15mm a year. If that's what happened then the minimum age of the city could not be less than about 50,000 years. But given the relative stability now, considerable time is also required to accelerate to that speed and then to decellerate to zero again. Count in another 10-20,000 years or so. As a reference, the northern part of the Baltic sea at Sweden is uplifting with 9 mm a year with as probable cause, the (isostatic) rebounce after heavy glaciation that ended some 10,000 years ago. But there was no ice around at Cuba and who could figure of anything else that would have caused such a (local?) subsidence? Furthermore given the conditions of the city, rate of burual in sediment, etc I agree with Paul Weinzweig that the age could be around 15,000 years. I do hope that they date that rock sample, perhaps using the 10Be/26Al method It appears that a lot of (fat, dumb and) happy Earth history sciences like geology, geophysics and archeology are about to get shaken up pretty badly.
im not sure how rock dating works begause woudnt they have used rocks that had formed before they started building, also who is to say that the ice had to be in cuba for its melting to have an effect on the sea level, sea levels all aver the world are rising because the polar ice caps are melting
There are a few tricks for rock dating. Some info here http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro/chap4.htm#4.5.4 Most radiogenic methods would only give the absolute date of the rock and that is likely to be millions of years. That doesn't help. The 10Be 26Al method is quite new. It's like a clock that starts ticking as soon as a rock is exposed to the open air. It's based on cosmogenic induced secondary radioactivity. So you should be able to detect when the stones were excavated. I'm not sure if it works in 700 meters water though and there are other difficulties. But the value will still yield a rough order of magnetude. Yes that sea level rise yoyo of the ice ages. Well, scholar view (not mine) is that the average global sea level rise (called eustatic sea level rise) has been about 120 meters when the last ice age ended. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Sea_level_rise A bit short of 700 meters
A few days ago I saw on TV a global map representing the earth 20,000 years ago. The shorelines depicted were those of the present time! If one would wish to find evidences of civilizations 20,000 years old, it would seem apparent to look along the coastlines of the seas that existed at this time. Today, in our present time, close to 90 percent of the earth's population is coastal. There is no reason to assume that it would be different back then. We had the coastline of 10,000 years ago, and that of 20,000 years ago. That was the biggest ice age. Of course, when all the ice melted, a period of non-stop rain for forty days and forty nights is not so farfetched. Chau
Now just take a map and say that it represents the shore line of whatever 650,000 years ago. Who is going to check. 10,000 years most of the North Sea was a steppe area with forests around the deltas of the rivers Thames, Rhine and Meuse. Beijing was sea less than 60,000 years ago. There is a a rather fresh skeleton (not fossilized) of a Narwal whale in the middle of October Revolution Island in the ice sea for the coast of Siberia at an height of 115 meters (Not published yet AFAIK but I know one of the discoverers quite well).
If one is interested in finding traces of civilizations of the period 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, it would seem logical to search the ancient coastlines of this period, especially where rivers entered the seas. Port cities. People then could not have been that different from us today, and commerce would naturally have been a drawing point, therefore ports. Also, coordinate this with the bits and pieces of mythology scattered around the world. For example, I see the "Rape of Europa" as the struggle over the territory of Europe by two opposing powers, of which the maritime power of "Atlantis" (Poseidon) emerged victorious, probably by maintaining its outpost of Crete to protect its "area of influence". I must admit, however, that I haven't the slightest clue as to what the shorelines of the Mediterrenean were 10,000 years ago. Just some passing thoughts.
Once we have determined that it is a city, the condition it's in and it's age, then we can start speculating on how it got there Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Till then we have insufficent evidence (even if it's presence does seem to support a particular theory Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) Andre: that Narwhal skeleton: I'm assuming it'll be dated to around the end of the LGM Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, what is the evidence worth that it is build of granite, while the local bedrock is limestone? About that Narwhal. Here is one of its vertebra. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I see that I was mistaken about not being published. It's dated using the radiogenic 14C method, which is not very accurate and the result was beyond the 14C border of about 50,000 years. It will be dated again, I was told, using mass spectrometer techniques. The index suggest the Eemian interglacial of 130,000 but we agreed that this was speculation. Most fosil material of that age is partly mineralized. This specimen most certainly was not. When you compare the texture with other specimens it looks like a couple of ten thousand years at the most.
Geological analysis of the granite should determine where it is from (no 2 granites are exactly alike) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
"A few days ago I saw on TV a global map representing the earth 20,000 years ago. The shorelines depicted were those of the present time!" There is a book called "After the Ice: A Global Human History 20000-5000 BC" by Steven Mithen which gives worldwide maps for 20000 BC. Some coastlines are remarkably unchanged but others are vastly different. Apart from the North Sea being dry, Sicily was joined to Italy and there was much dry land around Greece and Turkey. Ditto around Japan and Korea, Indonesia and Australia. Also quite a lot in the Caribbean.
Hi Cat, Long time no see. About those sealevels, I think we still know only a fraction of the reality, seeing the stream of unexpected discoveries that happen to fit in nicely with some pet idea of mine.
Hi Andre Good to see you again! Yes, it is a big job trying to plot the coastlines 20k ago. I would be surprised if he had it 100% (or maybe 50%) correct. Finally got a copy of "When the Earth nearly died" (re-issued as "Cataclysm"). Very interesting.
i must know more, can someone give me the exact position of this city so i can attemp to find a time period when the coastline was right
Not sure if you;ve seen this Andre, but looks like we may soon have our answers Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1097554324900B252
