Atlantis Possibly Liquified by Earthquake

Ok, I originally posted this as a response to this thread: Atlantis Sunk by a Meteorite?

I decided that this may be something of interest and deserves it's own thread. I have withdrawn the post and replaced it with a link to this thread.

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Really, I think the most reasonable explanation for the sinking of atlantis is liquifaction(?)

If you look at texts describing atlantis, they tell of it being built as several rings of water around a temple. The descriptions tell of massive amounts of canals that were dug out of the island.

Given strong shaking over a given minimum short time certain soils will turn to a liquid. This is called liquefaction. The looser and the smaller the particles the more effect. Sand would be worse. Bed rock will not liquefy. Hard dry clay is probable that it will, but is still to some degree questionable in my mind. Once the soil is in a liquid form it will slosh like any other liquid.

www.zetatalk.com... (Yeah, I know it's ZetaTalk, but it's a simple explanation of the process)

If the Atlanteans were digging canals, they obviously weren't cutting through bedrock. This definitly leaves this open to possibility.

There are four main hazards from earthquakes: shaking, faulting, tsunamis, and ground failure. Liquefaction is how shaking causes ground failure. If you've played on the beach, you can see how it works: take a patch of wet sand down in the surf zone. It may be firm enough to walk on, but if you pat it a few times the saturated sand turns to muck. In earthquakes, the same thing occurs in buried layers of young sediment, down at the water table as deep as 10 or 20 meters.

geology.about.com...

Japan has a bad problem with liquifaction during earthquakes. The whole island hasn't disappeared because of it, but it's also made up of alot of volcanic rock. As Byrd stated, there aren't many volcanoes in the area that Atlantis should've resided, nor have there been. This would leave one to assume that Atlantis was mainly 'dirt' or soil, although Plato's friend claimed there were quarries on Atlantis where they retrieved stone for the buildings and temple (can't remember his name... the one who described Atlanis and the culture... or was Plato talking amongst himself, using different names for the different sides he was taking as most philosophers have been known to do? Haven't been able to find the full texts, and have short attention span...).

Anyways, Atlantis, by this theory, could've been set up for it's demise by the inhabitants. Considering the number of canals that were reportedly built (dug), liquifaction would have been able to occurr with much less shaking. If there were an earthquake, the banks would cave into the canals first, pushing the water up onto the land. When the shaking occurs, the water would be mixed into the soil, furthering the process. In a video I watched of a Japanese earthquake driven liquifaction process, you could see water literally bleeding from the ground.

iserver.saddleback.cc.ca.us...

Don't forget that if Atlantis was off the coast of spain (straight out from the Pillars of Herecles) it could easily be prone to earthquakes originating from the plate boundaries of the North American Plate, European Plate, and African Plates. If you look at a map, there is a spot where all three meet that is really not far from where Atlantis should have been, according to the descriptions... especially if Atlantis was even half the size of Plato's description.

www.extremescience.com...

I'd provide better links, but all I can find on 5 minutes searching, for the most part, is crap for sale on Yahoo!... ticks me off so bad whenever I'm doing research!

*EDIT: Here's some good pics that will give you an idea of what liquifaction can do. geot.civil.metro-u.ac.jp...

Also, I've been spelling it wrong... the proper spelling is LIQUEFACTION, not LIQUIFACTION.

Was thinking today... if liquifaction was the cause of Atlantis sinking (assuming there even was an Atlantis), we should be able to find signs of alot of the regional coastlines also succombing to the same effect. It could also be possible that enough coastline fell into the water during such an event that it could have caused waves to wash over the eastern coastline of Atlantis as well.

Personally, I am led to believe there was an Atlantis. From what I've personally read (that guy again... what's his name?) Atlantis didn't seem all that mystical, and by no means an advanced civilization by todays standards. I really haven't even read anything about 'flying saucers' and such at all, and think that it's more heresay than anything else, but again I haven't read everything on Atlantis.

Anyone want to help further the notion of liquefaction? It makes more sense to me than volcanoes or meteorites or angry gods, and COULD actually account for how Atlantis was said to have sank in only a couple of days. Possible that there were a series of earthquakes (one obviously triggered by another) that could have caused enough shaking to do the trick.

And one last idea: Could it be possible that the western and southern coastlines were right on the faults and maybe that corner of the European Plate actually 'sank'? If the mid-atlantic rift was closer than it is today (which it should have been) it could have been supporting the edge, and since the North American Plate and EP are pulling away from each other, this seems feesable... although I'm by no means a geologist or any kind of tektonic plates expert.

Your idea of liquification, and that there should be evidence of other coastlines suffering the same thing, is supported by Plato's dialogue Critias, which is the major source of the Atlantis myth.
He is pretty clear that the islands of ancient Greece were larger and more fertile before several large earthquakes, one of which destroyed Atlantis, and a subsequent deluge.

It would be interesting to me if someone with some geological expertise could tell us if Plato's account of the natural disasters and their effects stand up to logic.

[edit on 25-6-2004 by The Vagabond]

I'm going to vote (oh, surprise, eh?) on the "no, that wasn't it" and "no, Atlantis is a myth" side. Now... I'll look over the links in more detail later, but as I understand it, the conditions for liquefaction are pretty specific and fairly rare. And, while it does turn the ground mushy and quick-sandy (yeah, I know. That's not a word. But it works in the context), it doesn't actually cause the ground to sink below sea level.

Karstian sinkholes wouldn't do it, either... there's always an atoll/rim of some sort left.

Rising waters as the ice age ended? No, that wasn't a sudden thing. Geologically sudden, maybe, but not in terms of a day or less.

It's a myth. If it was not a myth, there would be other ancient stories of Atlantis.

I agree, Byrd, that liquefaction probably wouldn't just sink an entire island, but if you take into consideration the massive amounts of canals that were reportedly built, it becomes more concievable. Even if it sank TO sea level, it would still be considered catastrophic, and would then be washed away by the years of the sea running over it. Really, I think that the sea levels probably rose well after the fact and some land may have been still exposed, although uninhabitable or possibly unuseable.

One thing I forgot to mention is that if coastlines were affected by an earthquake, the slides could have also caused large or even tidal waves to wash out and across the island... and one could only assume that Atlantis wasn't the only land affected by earthquakes of this magnitude. So, when you consider all of these together, it really does seem possible. Again, for Byrd's sake, this is all "IF" the Atlantis mythos is true. From what I've read about Atlantis, it was about equivilent to ancient Greece or Rome as far as being an 'advanced' civilization... and probagly more akin to the Mayan civilization, which is actually what I pictured almost every time I've read anything about Atlantis.

Your scenario would account for the additional information that the straits of Gibralter were said to have been blocked by a very large sea of mud for a long period of time and inhibited sea travel.Forgot the source, but it may be Plato, or Herodutus.

The barrier of mud is described in Plato's dialogue Critias, however to the best of my knowledge it is only mentioned in conjunction with Atlantis, (Critias being the major source of the story) so that really can't be considered a corroboration.

The accounts of Atlantis include an army consisting of spearmen and chariots. The "high tech" Atlantis is largely the product of Edgar Cayce I believe. It isn't impossible that Atlantis possessed a few minor marvels comparable to those of the other kingdoms of the ancient world, or even a little better, but that's only speculation for the benefit of of those who are determined to believe that their was a high tech Atlantis. No such thing is actually stated anywhere credible, to the best of my knowledge.

If I might grasp at straws (as i commonly do for entertainment purposes, as well as to stir the pot of ideas here) I would like to point out that Plato says Gades, originally Gadir, was named for the Atlantean king Gaderius. The problem here is that Gades probably was founded by the phoenecians between 1100 BC if not later. In order for this line of reasoning to go anywhere, I must postulate an older date for Gadir than even the Phonecians do, which damages this theory significantly, but I still wish to open this path to consideration in altered forms, so I am going to continue.
The founding of Gadir, if pushed to a date prior to 1200 BC, could coincide roughly with the Trojan war, and open the possibility that the land beyond Gibralter against which ancient Greece formed a coalition was not beyond Gibralter but beyond the Dardanelles. In this Atlantis becomes a serious confusion of the history of the Trojan war. It bears mentioning that the Welsh trace their origins to Troy in mythology, but without some serious creativity this is meaningless, because it was not as a colony of Troy but as a settlement for the refugees after the war.

So although this theory is badly flawed, I present it to open consideration of a more recent Atlantis which may have had either Phoenecian or Trojan ties. In this case I essentially write of the island and much of Plato's account as a myth or a mistake, which I often argue against, and I am in fact tempted not to post this, but I am curious what other minds may do with the idea. If nothing else I may be able to leave my own stamp on a popular myth. So here goes... click.