Note: this topic is from 5/09/2002. Thanks blam.
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Posted on 05/09/2002 3:33:40 PM PDT by blam
Scientists study possible submerged ancient city off Cuban coast
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Story Filed: Thursday, May 09, 2002 12:30 PM EST
Havana, May 09, 2002 (EFE via COMTEX) -- Large rock formations that could be part of an ancient city that sank thousands of years ago off the western tip of Cuba continue to be a mystery to Cuban and Canadian scientists.
"You can see coastal outlines, totally separated from Cuba. We could say it's an island apart from Cuba," Canadian marine engineer Paulina Zelitzky told Cuban television.
Zelitzky, of British Columbia-based Advanced Digital Communications (ADC) and a member of the Exploramar project, said the scientific community had no prior knowledge of a submerged island lying between Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba.
The discovery of the large rock formations, separated by small spaces and lying in the Cabo de San Antonio area off the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio, was made in July 2000.
Cuban scientists made the discovery while mapping the sea floor using sonar technology.
A remote-control underwater robot equipped with cameras, lights and sonar captured images some 630 meters (2,065 feet) below the surface.
Sonar imaging captured large megalithic rounded and pyramid-shaped structures symmetrically laid out at different angles from the faults found in the area.
Insufficient evidence exists at this time to determine if the structures were originally built on land and whether they are manmade or natural.
In the event the formations are part of a submerged city, scientists believe the city created an additional barrier for ocean currents and formed a bridge between Cuba and Yucatan that perhaps Caribbean biogeography could explain.
Zelitzky said she believed that the large granite structures could be the result of a geological fault produced when a plateau plummeted 600 meters (1,967 feet) below sea level some 6,000 years ago.
Zelitzky added that samples have not yet been extracted because the robot must be stabilized and supported before drilling into the hard rock.
Zelitzky's husband, Paul Weinzweig, and her son, Ernesto Tapanes, are working with Cuban scientists on the research vessel Ulises.
The vessel has been modernized to enable the use of sonar equipment to capture images of large areas of the sea floor at a depth of more than 1,000 meters (3,300 feet).
Researchers plan to return to the exact location of the submerged formations to gather additional information to formulate new theories on this underwater phenomenon.
"We understand the great archeological and historic significance of this discovery, but we're being cautious with our initial hypothesis," Cuban researcher and project adviser Gabino La Rosa Corzo said.
"Although studying these large structures brings to mind other relatively recent discoveries in Alexandria and Pompeii - among many other finds of large submerged cities - in this case we haven't uncovered typical components to prove that the structures are manmade," La Rosa said.
By Raquel Martori.
Note: this topic is from 5/09/2002. Thanks blam.
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Note: this topic is from 5/09/2002. Thanks blam.
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