Spartel

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Spartel Bank or Majuán Bank is a submerged former island located in the Strait of Gibraltar at 35°55' N 5°58' W near Cape Spartel, the top currently 56 meters below the surface. It vanished under the surface around 12,000 years ago^[1] due to rising ocean levels from melting ice caps after the last Glacial Maximum. It has been proposed as a site for the legendary lost island of Atlantis.

[edit] Spartel Bank as Atlantis hypothesis

The origins of this hypothesis are disputed. It may have been proposed in 2001 by French geologist Jacques Collina-Girard, but a similar hypothesis was first published by the Spanish-Cuban investigator Georgeos Díaz-Montexano in an April 2000 issue of Spanish magazine Más Allá de la Ciencia (Beyond Science), and later in August 2001 issues of Spanish magazines El Museo (The Museum) and Año Cero (Year Zero). Collina-Girard first published his hypothesis in a September 2001 issue of Science Academy.

Collina-Girard's hypothesis states that during the most recent Glacial Maximum of the Ice Age sea level was 135 m below its current height, narrowing the Gibraltar Strait and creating a small half-enclosed sea measuring 70 km by 20 km between the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. The Spartel Bank formed an archipelago in this small sea with the largest island measuring about 10 to 12 kilometers across. With rising ocean levels the island began to slowly shrink, but then at around 9400 BC (11400 years ago) there was an accelerated sea level rise of 4 meters per century known as Meltwater Pulse 1A, which drowned the top of the main island. A possible magnitude 9 earthquake proposed by marine geographer Marc-Andrè Gutscher as occurring in this region at about this time may have contributed to this relatively sudden disappearance by generating tsunamis.^[1]

Collina-Girard proposes that the disappearance of this island was recorded in prehistoric Egyptian tradition for 5000 years until it was written down by the first Egyptian scribes around 3000-4000 BC, and the story then subsequently inspired Plato to write a fictionalized version interpreted to illustrate his own principles.

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Ornekas, Genevra. "Atlantis Rises Again".

Nature article about the theory
Atlantis in Gibraltar, between Iberia and Africa, Diaz-Montexano's case for being the originator of the hypothesis.

[edit] Further reading

COLLINA-GIRARD, J (2001).-L'Atlantide devant le Detroit de Gibraltar ? mythe et géologie. Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris, Sciences de la Terre et des Planètes. 333 (2001) 233-240 available on : http://www.sciencedirect.com
COLLINA-GIRARD, J., (2001-2002).-La crise finiglaciaire à Gibraltar et l'Atlantide : tradition orale et géologie. PREHISTOIRE ANTHROPOLOGIE MEDITERRANEENNES, Tome 10-11, p 53-60
COLLINA-GIRARD J., 2003. La géologie du Détroit de Gibraltar et le mythe de l’Atlantide. Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise de Sciences Naturelles, 88.3: 323-341
COLLINA-GIRARD, J (2004). Atlantide réelle et imaginaire dans le Detroit de Gibraltar. Chapitre III : l'Atlantide face à la Science, pages 110-121 in Atlantides imaginaires, réécriture d'un mythe, Centre International de Cerisy la Salle, Editions Michel Houdiart, Paris.
COLLINA-GIRARD,J (2004).-Du vestige géologique au vestige litteraire, Gibraltar et l'Atlantide , LUKHNOS, Connaissance hellénique, n°100, Juillet 2004, Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, pp 9-21
COLLINA-GIRARD, J (2004).-La transgression finiglaciaire, l’archéologie et les textes (exemples de la grotte Cosquer et du mythe de l’Atlantide) in : Human records of recent geological evolution in the Mediterranean Basin-historical and archaeological evidence. CIESM Workshop Monographs, n° 24, 152 pages, Monaco, www.ciesm.org/publications/Santorini04.pdf, page 63-70
COLLINA-GIRARD, J (2004). Atlantide réelle et imaginaire dans le Detroit de Gibraltar. Chapitre III : l'Atlantide face à la Science, pages 110-121 in Atlantides imaginaires, réécriture d'un mythe, Centre International de Cerisy la Salle, Editions Michel Houdiart, Paris.
Atlantis in Gibraltar by Collina-Girard (in French)