Today I will revisit the
geological and climatic conditions and changes that took place in the
North Atlantic with the demise of the Ice Age.
As I have posted in the
past there is developing evidence to support a direct crustal shift
that moved the North Pole thirty degrees south through the longitude
of Hudson Bay, 13,000 BP that I label the Pleistocene Nonconformity.
With that event, the Great Northern Ice Age went into steady decline
allowing the emergence of agriculture in continental temperate
landmasses. Yet none of this is important in terms of
reconstructing the history of the post event changes.
The first thing that we
need to address is the landmasses along the northern edge of the ice
cap. It turns out that Iceland was at least twice as large as at
present and nearly connected directly to Greenland on the west. In
the East we had the North sea shelf that extended the British Isles
westward. The passage in between was also filled with shallow lands
that could easily have initially above sea level. In short, during
the Ice Age the Arctic was as cut off from the Atlantic as the
Pacific is cut of from it also. The Northern Ice Cap was as terrible
as the Antarctic Ice Cap.
In addition we have a
land mass off the coast of Ireland that was around four times as
large as Ireland that would have been mostly above sea level but not
mountainous. This is likely Lyonese. However all these lands were
likely heavily burdened with ice and unpleasant to travel through
unless you were Solutrean and had skin boats and seal hunting skills.
The end of the Ice age
turned on the full strength of the Gulf Stream. With this the ice
began to be driven back and this was focused fully on this coast and
the ice sheets of Europe. Also the sea level began its inexorable
rise that ultimately totaled around one hundred meters or three
hundred feet. I suspect that it took most of 10,000 years to be
fully complete, although it was mostly complete when Lake Agassiz
discharged around 8000 years ago. It is also obvious that all this
activity took place inside spans that can be covered with folk
memories.
What needs to be
understood though is that all the heat in the Gulf Stream stayed in
the North Atlantic for a long time\ without penetrating the Arctic
This is important because it explains the discovery from seabed
sampling that current temperatures were two full degrees warmer until
around three thousand years ago. This powerfully suggest that at
least a portion of the Current was still blocked from penetrating the
Arctic directly until then.
The European portion of
the Ice Age would have well collapsed by then and the record supports
that but the Arctic itself would still have held sway along the
northern European Coast until the North Sea Shelf was submerged.
That again appears to be well remembered in folk memories.
The blockage was most
certainly the land mass of Lyonese and most likely parts of the
Icelandic shelf.
One more element entered
the story. The collapse of the North American portion of the Ice Age
continued apace although it may not have been complete until three
thousand years ago. This relieved massive pressure on the crust
centered around Hudson Bay that is continuing slowly to this day.
The movement itself was slow and steady.
However it meant that
shift of material was taking place deep in the crust and that
somewhere a portion of the crust needed to subside in order to
restore crustal balance. The closest portion of the Mid Atlantic
Ridge appears the most obvious candidate. This included Lyonese.
Such an event would also coincide with a major activation of
Icelandic Volcanoes.
It may even have happened
as recently as 1159BC when Hekla exploded and ended the Atlantean
Trading culture. It now becomes plausible that Lyonese contained the
core city of Atlantis itself as I am loath to locate two rapidly
subsiding islands.
Keep in mind huge tracts
of land subsided slowly due to the rising seas. This included the
continental shelf everywhere and particularly in the Atlantic, the
Grand Banks and the Bahama Banks. Both are country sized and the
Bahama bank could well have retained a remnant around Bimini during
the heyday of the Atlantean trade empire (2400 BC to 1159 BC).
However the volcanism although not directly on Lyonese was
immediately north and certainly part of the story since it hurled
Europe into a dark age in which crops failed for a generation.
In the event a flat land
four times the size of Ireland, continually bathed by the Gulf Steam
would be ideal for Northern European agriculture. Since the
Atlantean story always had a european flavor it needs to be
considered.
This means that it was
far larger than I ever thought and certainly has the room to meet the
measurements of Plato for the core region of Atlantis. I suspect
also that in 1159 BC that large portions of the Bank was already
submerged.
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