Lost World: Submerged Mountains in North Atlantic Ocean
posted on Jul 12, 2011 @ 4:09PM
An ancient landscape long ago submerged beneath the North Atlantic Ocean has been discovered by scientists. Researchers found the 56million-year-old lost terrain, which they have likened to the mythical lost city of Atlantis, by analysing data collected for oil companies using an advanced echo-sounding technique.
The 1.2mile-deep landscape is located in the North Atlantic west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands and has peaks that once belonged to mountains and eight major rivers. Scientists were able to construct this 3D image of the landscape submerged beneath the North Atlantic Ocean by measuring the echoes made by underwater sound waves as they hit different land types.
It would once have risen up to 0.6 miles above sea level and probably joined up with what is now Scotland, and may even have stretched as far as Norway, the scientists said. Researcher Nicky White, from University of Cambridge, said: "It looks for all the world like a map of a bit of a country onshore." It is like an ancient fossil landscape preserved 1.2 miles beneath the seabed.