Lost City of Atlantis Still Lost (and not found on Google Earth)

By Nancy Atkinson - February 23, 2009 at 11:02 AM UTC | Site News
atlantis.jpg

[/caption] There was a bit of a buzz late last week about a Google Earth image that some said might show the location of the mythical city Atlantis off the coast of Africa. Reportedly a British aeronautical engineer was playing around with the

new Google Earth 5.0

,

which includes undersea data,

and noticed an interesting pattern about 600 miles west of the Canary Islands, that resembled a street grid. Even an excited geologist was quoted as saying this deserved a better look. But Google verified the pattern is just an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.

Sorry to dash everyone's myth-seeking hopes!

"It's true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth including a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species and the remains of an Ancient Roman villa," a Google spokesperson said. "In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. [caption id="attachment_26086" align="aligncenter" width="468" caption="Location of grid pattern. Credit: Google Earth"]

[/caption] "The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data," she said. "The fact that there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world's oceans."

The legend of Atlantis has excited public imagination for centuries. In recent years "evidence" of the lost kingdom has been found off the coast of Cyprus and in southern Spain.

Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in the writings of Plato, as a great city that sank into the sea.
In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".

Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by traditional stories of the time.

If you want to see the image yourself, go to

Google Earth

at this location: 31 15'15.53N 24 15'30.53W.

Sources:

Telegraph,

Daily Mail

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com