The long-fabled lost city of Atlantis was reportedly made up of concentric islands, separated by wide moats and linked by a canal that penetrated to the center with precious metals and bountiful wildlife. There have been two proposed locations where world-renowned scientists survey for Atlantis in 2024.
Earth’s most recent ice age began 115,000 years ago. In it’s peak, 7.7 million more square miles were above water than are today. Many believe humans had architectural skills longer than previously thought—far before agriculture. Could these submerged hunter-gatherer hotspots host a lost civilization? Plato marked the first historical account of a powerful utopian civilization lost to the sea 9,000 years before his own time. Here we are 2,300 years later still wondering. Is Atlantis sleeping below sediment in the Dutch area of today’s North Sea? Or buried by time northwest of the Australian continent? If scientists survey for Atlantis there must be a reason. Let’s dive in.
Scientists survey for Atlantis in Doggerland, an ancient landmass submerged in the North and Baltic Seas
A team has been assembled to explore a submerged landmass in the North Sea while supporting sustainable development of renewable energy infrastructure in the survey area. This diverse team of researchers, known as SUBNORDICA, has been funded by the European Research Council, and is comprised of University of Bradford’s Submerged Landscapes Research Centre in the U.K., TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands, Flanders Marine Institute, and the University of York.
Scientists survey for Atlantis in Doggerland because it once offered optimal conditions for human settlement in Northern Europe. Archeologists have been lured by fossilized evidence of game animals, a prehistoric harpoon dated to 11,740 BC, flint tools, an axe head, possible burial sites, and even footprints left by our ancestors on the seafloor.
This 2024 collaboration will explore Doggerland, a landmass larger than Holland, that once connected Britain to continental Europe. As much-needed renewable energy development progresses, it limits research of areas that could have a profound impact on the understanding of human origins. Doggerland flooded 8,200 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, leaving only the rocks of Helgoland above water.
12,000 years ago, a colder climate near the end of the last ice age exposed gently sloping hills, marshlands, forests, and lagoons. As the global temperature rose, and with it the coastlines, human civilization slowly retreated from gradual sea rise—until catastrophic events 8,200 years ago. A torrent of water from a North American glacial lake and a tsunami caused by a landslide off Norway ended an era of human inhabitation in Doggerland. Layers of thick sediment will be a challenge as scientists survey for Atlantis.
A team organized back in 2012 by Dr. Richard Bates, a geophysicist at the University of St. Andrews, used data from oil prospecting, says Doggerland exceeded populations of most modern European cities.
Advanced seabed mapping for AI simulation of lost settlements, seismic and acoustic surveys, and core sampling. The University of Bradford plans to analyze surveys intended for environmental impact assessments in the area. Previous seismic survey data acquired from oil companies drilling in the North Sea have reconstructed a digital model of 46,620 square kilometers (18,000 square miles) of Doggerland’s topography.
Scientists survey for Atlantis in Sahul, a sunken landmass once inhabited by ancient humans in the Pacific 17,000 years ago
Another possible location for Atlantis has been studied via sonar mapping in 2023 revealing a huge portion of land disappeared called Sahul under the Pacific Ocean, separating Australia from New Guinea and Tasmania 70,000 to 9,000 years ago.
Genetic studies and archaeological evidence suggest early humans first colonized Sahul around 50,000 years ago, a paleocontinent encompassing and connecting Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the Aru Islands.
Valley and gorge systems had potential to act as permanent freshwater rivers and reservoirs during times of lower sea levels, including a freshwater lake that existed for 16,000 years on the paleocontinent where scientists survey for Atlantis in 2024. Demographic modeling supported by genetic research revealed a peak in population 20,000 years ago, at the height of the last ice age when sea levels were 150 meters (490 feet) lower than current levels, exposing dry land.
Sahul was potentially capable of supporting as much as half a million people in peak inhabitation. Evidence for a large civilized prehistoric population is evidenced by shared modern-day cultural narratives, types of tools, and distinctive commonalities in currently-spoken languages of indigenous groups. Periods of accelerated sea level rise which submerged Sahul triggered the retreat of early and prehistoric human populations inland. Sea levels rose as the ice melted 14,000 years ago, completely covering Sahul by 9,000 years ago.
In conclusion: As scientists survey for Atlantis in 2024 we will keep you up-to-date.
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