1. Description of Atlantis, the sunken continent

Riaan Booysen (www.riaanbooysen.com)
Abstract
It is argued that Terra Australis Incognita, the ‘imaginary’ southern continent which appears
on virtually all early maps of the world, was a real continent which matches Plato’s mythical
Atlantis in many respects. Maps showing three different forms of Terra Australis suggest a
continent of which the central plain was gradually being flooded before it ultimately
disappeared under the water. The submarine topography of New Zealand closely matches one
of these maps and ancient legends of South America suggest that disappearance of the
continent was caused by the impact of a comet. It is argued that Antarctica must have been
ice free up to 12,000 years ago, when the impact of a comet caused a tsunami which nearly
caused the extinction of mankind, the tsunami having been recorded in the Bible as the Great
Flood.
1. Description of Atlantis, the sunken continent
Plato, in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, relates the legend of a powerful nation that
around 9500 BCE inhabited a continent greater in size than ancient Libya and Asia
combined. This nation attacked and conquered Europe and Asia, with only the Greeks being
able to prevail against them. Sometime after the invasion, however, the Greeks and the
Atlanteans were ‘swallowed up’ by the sea in a single grievous day and night.
The continent, which lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules, is described as having had a central,
‘rectangular and oblong’ shaped plain with a 3:2 length-to-width ratio, surrounded by
mountains but with an opening to the sea. A mountain that was ‘low on all sides’ ran through
the centre of the plain. Atlantis had ten states or provinces, each with its own king and
capital city. The fabulous royal city of Atlantis was surrounded by circles of sea over which
bridges had been built. The royal city of Atlantis alone had a standing army of what based on
calculations must have been close to 1 million soldiers and a fleet of 1200 warships1. The
capital cities of the other states had armies of varying sizes, with a total population of
between 64 and 100 million people2.
2. What one would be looking for ...
As Plato appears to be the only source of information on Atlantis, many scholars doubt the
authenticity of his reports, or in other words, Atlantis is nothing more than a myth. If,
however, Plato’s account is based on a real continent that once existed, but sank below the
ocean in a single day, there simply has to be other evidence suggesting its existence. What
we would be looking for is evidence in the form of ancient maps, the first choice, and then
also in ancient legends, archaeology and, with any luck, modern geography.
3. Ancient maps showing a vast continent which no longer exists
Many early world maps have one oddity in common, namely a vast southern continent
generally called Terra Australis Incognita (The Unknown Land in the South). Following the
middle ages there appears to have been a widespread belief that this continent not only
existed, but that it used to be home to a people who dominated the world3. This belief
gradually diminished and was discarded altogether following James Cook’s second voyage
from 1772-1775 CE4.
The idea of a southern continent appears to have been introduced by Aristotle, a student of
Plato, no less, in his Meteorology5,
“ But it is the sea which divides as it seems the parts beyond India from those beyond
the Pillars of Heracles and prevents the earth from being inhabited all round. Now
since there must be a region bearing the same relation to the southern pole as the
place we live in bears to our pole, it will clearly correspond in the ordering of its
winds as well as in other things.”
One would be tempted to conclude that Aristotle is here implying that Plato’s Atlantis, which
lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules and which Aristotle would have been familiar with, was
indeed the southern continent! Did Plato have additional information to this effect, not
recorded in his dialogues? Later cartographers like Mercator used the argument that the
landmasses in the northern hemisphere had to be balanced by similar landmasses in the
south6. Mercator admitted having based some aspects of his maps on the work of earlier
cartographers and as such it is still conceivable that the southern continent could have been
no more than a figment of their imagination. However, a closer look at other shapes of this
vast continent suggests that this continent was anything but imaginary.
Although most depictions of Terra Australis show a vast, continuous landmass, two other
maps show a ring-shaped continent and a C-shaped continent, respectively. Figure 1 shows
the azimuthal map projections by Schöner (his 1533 globe)7, the so-called Vatican Map8 and
Schöner’s 1515 gores globe9, here transformed into a continuous map The creator of the
Vatican map is unknown and despites its name (Terra Incognita), it contains numerous place-
names. This suggests that the southern continent was not as unknown as an entirely fictitious
map would demand.
Schöner’s 1533 Globe
Vatican Map 1530
Schöner’s 1515 Globe
Figure 1. Early maps showing Terra Australis as a continent with a flooded central plain
These three presentations clearly show a continent with a central plain which has become
flooded. There is simply no other interpretation. It is almost impossible that these three
correlating shapes could otherwise have been ‘imagined’ independently of the other. Could
this continent have been Atlantis? In the first instance, Terra Australis is the only
documented record of a vast continent which has disappeared under the ocean (is no longer
visible today). Secondly, the shape of the continent matches the broad description given by
Plato. We have a vast central plain which is surrounded by what appears to be mountain
ranges, with an opening to the sea (Schöner’s 1515 Globe). The shape of the plain is oblong
and has a length-to-width ratio of 3:2 as described by Plato (see Figure 2, shape will be
slightly different on actual earth). One can also visualize that the ‘circles’ of sea mentioned
by Plato most likely refers to the encroaching sea meandering across the plain and
systematically encircling all the high lying areas. The flooding of the plain would explain
why the Atlanteans had the audacity to attack Europe and Asia – their homeland was steadily
being swallowed up by the sea. They simply had to find an alternative place to live. The next
question is whether this continent, or at least parts of it, can be identified on the ocean floor,
where the continent supposedly sank to.
Figure 2. A 3:2 rectangle superimposed upon the plain of Schöner’s 1515 map of Terra
Australis
4. Terra Australis on the ocean floor
Comparing the last form of Terra Australis (the C-shaped map) to a NASA bathymetry
image10 of the South Pole, one is immediately struck by the close correlation between
Australia and sub-marine New Zealand and the end points of the C-shaped Terra Australis
(Figure 3).
Figure 3. End points of C-shaped Terra Australis compared to Australia and sub-marine New
Zealand
Also evident from the NASA bathymetry map is the high-lying sub-marine region, called
Regio Patalis on some maps of Terra Australis11, which connects Australia and New Zealand.
If the entire region had once been above sea level, it would match the ring-shaped continent
shown in Figure 1. On the ocean floor below Australia one can see a mid-ocean ridge, which
would match Plato’s mountain which was ‘low on all sides’.
The correlation between the C-shaped map of Terra Australis and actual geography does not
end here. A huge lake is shown in the middle of the Australian end of the C-shaped Terra
Australis, but no such lake exists in Australia today. In order to establish whether such a lake
could have existed had Terra Australis received sufficient rainfall, I digitally filled up the
low-lying region on the NASA topography map of Australia12 (overlaid onto a Geoscience
Australia bathymetry map13), which as shown in Figure 4 resulted in a huge lake
corresponding in size and location of the Terra Australis lake (see my website for details).
Even the mountain ranges agree fairly well.
Figure 4. Digitally filled lake which would exist should Australia receive continuous, pouring
rain.
This lake overflows in Australia’s Spencer Gulf and the sub-marine canyons on the edge of
the continental shelf plunge to the ocean floor 4000 m below sea level. This would imply that
before Atlantis ‘sank beneath the ocean’, Australia would have been more than 4000 m
higher than it is today. According to oceanographers the sub-marine canyons were formed
by turbidity currents14 (Figure 5), but this hypothesis is highly suspect.
Figure 5. Formation of submarine canyons by turbidity currents.
There is no question that turbidity currents do appear in nature, but it is unlikely that these
currents would have been able to carve the immense sub-marine canyons on the Australian
continental shelf. As an example, a sub-marine canyon runs down New Zealand’s Bounty
Trough (Figure 6), and this canyon was supposedly also carved by turbidity currents. The
canyon is about 900 km long and ends at a depth of about 7 km. This gives an average slope
of only 0.4°, and we are expected to accept that the turbidite deposits kept on rolling and
carving into the ocean floor for 900 km, amid ocean cross currents. The turbidity currents
will lose speed as the depth increases and the heavier, abrasive particles will be deposited
near the continental shelf. Other forms of sedimentary erosion of the canyon must certainly
be equally unlikely. The only logical explanation is that this canyon must have been formed
by a river cutting through the rock of the Bounty Trough. In other words, it must have been
above sea level.
Figure 6. Sub-marine canyon running down New Zealand’s Bounty Trough
That this region was indeed more than 4000 m higher sometime in the recent past, and by
implication that maps of this region must have existed, is suggested by the world maps of
Ortelius (1564 / 1570)15 and Mercator (1569)16, which both show a curious bulge of the
western coast of South America. As shown in Figure 7, there is a matching ‘bulge’ on the
ocean floor. What on earth would have possessed Mercator to draw this curious shape, unless
he had access to ancient maps depicting the region before it ‘sank’?
Figure 7. Mercator’s 1569 World Map with South America’s west coast bulge on the ocean
floor
5. How did Atlantis sink?
According to Plato, Atlantis disappeared under the waters of the ocean within a single day. Is
it possible for a continent to sink 4 km below sea level in one day? There are probably only
two possibilities – either an impact by a huge comet or asteroid, or continental drift resulting
in a sudden movement of overlapping continental shelves. Either way, the result would have
been a massive tsunami, which no doubt was the Great Flood as recorded in the Bible17 and
in numerous similar but entirely independent legends in other cultures18. This flood would
have wiped out almost all forms of life on earth, including the Greeks in their low-lying
country. According to the Bible, God warned Noah about the impending flood and Noah
obediently built an Ark as instructed. Torrential rain that lasted for 40 days brought the flood
and only Noah and his family survived. The fact that Noah was ‘warned’ precludes a flood
caused by tectonic movement, as there is no way of knowing when such a slip between two
continental plates will occur. On the other hand, one can clearly see a comet approaching if it
is close enough. It may also have been observed long before and depending on how long the
Atlantean civilization had existed, it is possible that they knew that they would one day be
struck by a comet.
The tail of a comet always points away from the sun19, and if a comet was approaching the
earth 12 000 years ago from the direction of the sun, its tail would have entered the
atmosphere of the earth before the final impact. The tail of a comet can be millions of
kilometres long, so it is possible that the Atlanteans long observed the meteor shower which
occurred when the tail began moving through the atmosphere of the earth. They realized that
they had to leave their motherland, hence the numerous ‘Noah and the Ark’ legends. Only in
boats and ships would they be safe, as the tsunami would form a giant wave in the middle of
the ocean on which their ships could nevertheless survive. Only when the tsunami reached
land would it have caused total destruction.
If the earth had been struck by a comet big enough to have nearly extinguished all forms of
life on earth, there must certainly be a crater or other evidence of such an impact.
Furthermore, with Terra Australis having been identified as Atlantis, one would expect this
impact to have occurred either on or near this continent. Figure 8 shows South America as
depicted by Mercator and Ortelius, along with a WorldSat bathymetry image of South
America20. Immediately obvious is the fact that the narrow strait separating South America
and Terra Australis on the maps has been replaced by a huge gap, the Drake Passage.
Underneath the waters of the Drake Passage lies the Scotia Plate, a more detailed image of
which is shown in Figure 9. The Scotia Plate appears to present the crater formed by a comet
striking the earth at a low angle from the west, and the fractured continental blocks on the
ocean floor suggest that it had penetrated through the crust of the earth. If this is true, one can
understand how the crust of the earth could have been forced down by 4000 m or more. This
would explain how an entire continent can ‘sink’ below the waters of the ocean in an instant.
The continent of Antarctica, the northern tip of which is just visible in Figures 8 and 9, lies
high above sea level, which would contradict that part of Terra Australis forming part of the
central plain. It is possible, however, that the impact of the comet raised that part of the
continent of Terra Australis to form present-day Antarctica.
Figure 8. South America on early world maps compared to MODIS bathymetry image
Figure 9. Google Earth image of the Scotia Plate
That a comet impact occurred near Southern America is suggest by geographical and
archaeological anomalies like millions of fossilized sea shells littered around Lake Titicaca
on the border of Peru and Bolivia, 3812 m above sea level21. Although Hancock argues that
this area must have been below sea level before the cataclysm which led to the upheaval of
the continent, a more likely scenario is that these shells and other evidence of marine life was
the result of the massive splash when the comet ploughed into the ocean. It is interesting to
note that some Creationists have been arguing that the Grand Canyon was formed by the
Great Flood of the Bible. The impact of a comet at the Scotia Plate would have created a
tsunami that would probably have been high enough to do just that (see my website for
details). It should be noted that the sea passage between South America and Terra Australis
appears to have been known to mapmakers long before the discovery of a passage around the
southern tip of South America by Magellan in 152022 (for instance on Schöner’s 1515 globe).
According to tradition Magellan had only a partial drawing of the channel on his journey,
having memorized the other part for fear of the map falling into Spanish hands (see my
website for details).
Another strange phenomenon we observe today is the fact that the magnetic North and South
Poles are not co-located with the geographic North and South Poles. The magnetic poles are
defined by a wandering point where the earth’s geomagnetic field lines are directed vertically
upwards23. The earth’s magnetic field lines are presumably formed over millions of years by
the rotation of earth and the magnetization of the molten iron alloys in the Earth’s outer
core24, but presumably also of the iron alloys in the mantle and crust. One would therefore
expect the magnetic and geographic poles to align perfectly. However, the impact of the
comet into the crust and upper mantle of the earth, which ‘floats’ on the outer core, could
easily have resulted in the crust moving relative to the outer core. The wandering effect of the
magnetic North and South Poles may be seen as the steady re-alignment of the earth’s
magnetic field with its geometrical axis.
It is also interesting to note that the North Magnetic Pole is estimated be located at 82.7°N
114.4°W and the South Magnetic Pole at 64.5°S 137.9°E25. The North Magnetic Pole
therefore is about 812 km removed from the geographical North Pole, while the South
Magnetic Pole is a massive 2838 km from the geometric South Pole. Assuming that the
South Magnetic Pole was located at the geometrical South Pole before the impact, an impact
at the Scotia Plate seems to have moved the crust and therefore the magnetic poles in the
direction and to the position shown in Figure 10. The entire crust would have rotated in that
direction and this is confirmed by the direction of movement of the North Magnetic Pole.
The fact that the North Magnetic Pole moved a significantly smaller distance is easily
explained since the continental plates in the south would have moved relative to each other
more than in the north. For all we know the slow wobbling of the earth around its axis every
26 000 years, a process known as precession26, may also have been caused by this impact.
Either way, the ancients remembered that the relative position of the stars had changed after
the flood27, which would confirm a change in the orientation of the earth relative to the stars.
It should be noted that the movement of the crust and magnetic poles to its present position
would not have been instantaneous. Instead, the impact would have caused an initial impetus
in that direction and the continental shelves would eventually have come to rest in the present
location.
South Magnetic Pole
North Magnetic Pole
Figure 10. Movement of magnetic poles after impact
Apart from these geographical anomalies, ancient legends of that region include reports that
sky had fallen, the sea was boiling and the sole survivor of the human race, like the biblical
Noah, had to hide from the fire in a cave28. The falling sky must certainly be the approaching
tail of the comet entering the earth’s atmosphere, and the fire those fires lit by the associated
meteorites. That the sea was boiling most likely refers to the impact crater at the bottom of
the sea, where lava would have become directly exposed to sea water. Large meteorites
falling into the sea would have had a similar but much smaller effect.
6. The main obstacle – ice core dating
Probably the most important objection to my theory that Terra Australis was Atlantis must
certainly be the results of ice core dating of specifically the Antarctic ice sheet. Ice core data
from Antarctica suggest that the ice sheet may be up to 800,000 years old29. Antarctica would
have formed part of Terra Australis and an 800,000 year old ice sheet must contain a huge
layer of the debris from the impact of the comet. If it does not, there are only two possible
explanations, namely that Antarctica was never inhabited and a comet impact had never
occurred, or that the ice core dating method is completely inaccurate and by implication that
the ice sheet only developed after the impact. To my knowledge none of the ice core samples
taken from Antarctica show any signs of a cataclysmic event around 12,000 years ago, and I
do not have the scientific background to challenge any of these results. All I really can do is
to present circumstantial evidence that a major natural catastrophe must have occurred
around 12,000 years ago and that its extent would have been so enormous that it must be
visible in ice core data.
Perhaps the best starting point is the fact that a civilization once existed which possessed
certain technologies that were essentially impossible for them to have in terms of what we
know today. I discuss these anomalies the ‘Ancient enigmas and anomalies’ section on my
website, including the pyramids of Giza, stone cutting and drilling and the Nazca lines and
Palpa mountains. A key argument is the issue of the weathering of the Sphinx, which could
only have been caused by continual rainfall. The Sahara desert experienced high levels of
rainfall 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, and
“a vast lake covered the region, and a whole network of lakes and Neolithic fishermen
occupied the Sahara.”30.
These conclusions are based on eroding fragments of lake sediments found in the heart of the
Sahara that contain the skeletons of fish and crocodile bones. As shown in Figure 11, this
very lake appears to have been mapped by Mercator on his 1569 world map. The lake would
have disappeared probably around 3000 BCE at the latest (5,000 years ago), if not millennia
earlier. Mercator’s map is astonishingly accurate not only in terms of the location and
relative size of the lake, but also the location of the rivers that fed it. All that remains today
are dry riverbeds. Where did he get his information from? He most certainly must have had
access to ancient maps. Who were these mapmakers? Neolithic humans who had only just
mastered stone tools? These mapmakers would have possessed a method to record latitude
and longitude, otherwise it would have been near impossible to map an entire continent. This
brings us to probably the greatest enigma of all the ancient maps of the world. Although
latitude can be calculated roughly from the position of the sun, techniques for measuring
longitude were only being investigated from the early 1600s and accomplished in the
1800s31,32. How then was it possible for anyone to map the world without any means of
measuring longitude?
Figure 11. Rivers and lake in the middle of the Sahara desert on Mercator’s 1569 map
Finally, it is appropriate to in a manner of speaking go back to the beginning, that is, to the
‘creation’. Although the creation legend in the Bible is only one of many similar legends, it
provides us with some intriguing details33:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless
and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was
hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’ ... And God said, ‘Let
there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water. ... And God
called the expanse ‘sky’. ... And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to
one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And God called the dry ground ‘land’ and the
gathered waters ‘seas.’ ... ”
The earth is of course not 6,000 but billions of years old. So what would this creation myth
and the many others like it be describing? It is quite obvious that this creation myth describes
the emergence of life following a natural disaster which plunged the earth in pitch black
darkness and covered land with water. In other words, it describes the aftermath of a massive
impact of a cataclysm which flooded the earth and resulted in the atmosphere being filled
with dust particles to the extent that the sun was completely blocked out. The stories of the
Noah’s who survived the Great Flood then also make sense – it describes the existence of
people before the Great Flood, which nearly exterminated the human race. The creation story
is what followed after the Great Flood, the re-emergence of life on earth. There was water
and darkness everywhere. Eventually the sun broke through and the flood waters returned to
the sea or were absorbed in the ground.
If the ice sheet of Antarctica is indeed hundreds of thousands of years old, it must contain a
thick layer of evidence of this cataclysm in the layers dating back to about 12,000 years ago.
If the impact was indeed so huge that it forced an entire continent below the sea, one can
understand how the atmosphere would have remained dark for possibly many decades. This
darkness would have caused the poles to ice up vary rapidly, especially the South Pole, where
the boiling sea would have saturated the atmosphere with moisture. Scientists have long been
baffled by the sudden extinction of most large animal species in North America, and also
South America. These extinctions, also called the Late Pleistocene Extinctions34, occurred
around 11,500 years ago and can therefore be linked to the global catastrophe which resulted
in the Great Flood. The massive earthquake caused by the impact would literally have pulled
the rug from under the feet of these huge mammals, and many would have been too severely
injured to survive the fall. In Alaska piles of twisted parts of animals and layers of peat and
mosses had been embedded by dark-grey sand35, suggesting that the carcasses had been swept
into those areas by the waters of the Flood. The carcasses of these animals were frozen
immediately after death, as its perfectly preserved meat would otherwise have decayed. Such
a widespread freezing of animal carcasses could only have been caused by a complete blackout of the sun, possibly for many months if not years in the polar regions. The ice core data
must certainly bear evidence of this event. If not, one must assume that the ice sheets of
Antarctica and Greenland were formed relatively recently, only 12,000 years ago.
7. References
1. See here for calculations.
2. See here for discussion.
3. Bishop Joseph Hall, Mundus alter et idem sive Terra Australis antehac semper incognita
4. James Cook, 2nd voyage.
5. Aristotle, Meteorology II.5.
6. Alfred Hiatt, Terra Incognita – Mapping the Antipodes before 1600, University of Chicago
Press: Chicago and London, 2008, p. 228.
7. Schöner 1533 map.
8. Chet van Duzer, ‘Cartographic Invention: The Southern Continent on Vatican MS Urb.
Lat. 274, Folios 73v-74r (c.1530)’, Imago Mundi Vol. 57, Part 2, 2005, pp. 193-222.
9. Schoner 1515 map at atlantismaps.com.
10. NASA bathymetry map.
11. Schöner 1533 map.
12. NASA Topography map of Australia.
13. Australian Government – Geoscience Australia – Geological Map.
14. Turbidity current.
15. Ortelius world map.
16. Mercator 1569 world map, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
17. Genesis 6.
18. Flood myths; Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, 2001 edition, p. 208.
19. Comet tail.
20. South America, WorldSat International Inc.,Canada, 2000.
21. Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, 2001 edition, p. 67.
22. Magellan’s Strait.
23. Magnetic poles.
24. Earth’s outer core.
25. South Magnetic Pole.
26. Precession.
27. Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, 2001 edition, p. 208.
28. Philip Freud, Mysteries of Creation, Peter Owen Publishers, 2003 edition, pp. 9-13.
29. Ice core data.
30. John E. Kutzbach, ‘Historical perspectives: climatic changes throughout the millennia’,
Global Change and Our Common Future – Papers from a Forum, National Academy Press,
Washington DC, 1990, pp. 50-61.
31. History of Longitude.
32. Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, 2001 edition, Chapter 3.
33. Genesis 1.
34. Late Pleistocene Extinctions.
35. Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, 2001 edition, pp. 228-231.