River
Systems Extract - Azores as a Large Island
In 1971
we carried out an inspection of parts of the South Coast of
San Miguel, the largest of the Azorean Islands. At one point,
we found the remnants of a large, boulder filled, river-bed
truncated by the shoreline. The rounded boulders were smoothly
water-worn and massive (up to two feet across). The river bed,
if we remember correctly, was some two hundred and fifty feet
from bank to bank; but there was now insufficient width of island
to sustain such a river. The boulders were so worn that they
had, obviously, travelled a considerable distance, and a strong
current of water with a head of thousands of feet would have
been required to transport them. There was no room on the narrow
island for such a current to be fostered - the rivers source
must have lain to the north, on the flanks of a high mountain
range. The present mountains on San Miguel are only a little
over 3,000 feet high; and we estimate that it would have required
a fall of at least 10,000 feet to have reduced boulders of that
size, and hardness, to the degree of roundness which they profess.
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This discovery
so intrigued us that we started an investigation of the mapped
sea-bed around all of the islands, with remarkable results.
We started with the 1:1 million scale Admiralty Chart - Arquipelago
dos Acores - the numerous soundings of which gave a very good
general view of the configuration of the sea bed over the whole
group of Azorean islands, covering, from east to west - Ilheus
das Formigas, Santa Maria, Sao Miguel, Terciera, Soa Jrge, Graciosa,
Pico (with its 7,613 feet high, conical, volcanic peak). These
were supplemented by larger scale charts where they were available.
We started
by contouring the sea bed at intervals of 100 fathoms (600 feet),
and it immediately became clear that the river systems that
now modestly drain the southern flanks of Sao Miguel were merely
head-water tributaries whose channels continued far out to sea,
joining into one great, winding, submarine valley some 40 miles
further to the south. Other islands contributed similar results
and, outstanding, were the triple group of Fial, Sao Jorge and
Terciera whose combined results spawned two long river-like
valleys which joined into one large valley to give a system
that extended for 180 miles.
The whole
of the Azorean island group was separated and surrounded by
a net of submarine valleys that had all the hall-marks of having
once been river valley's on the surface. The Azores could -
and probably had, within comparatively recent times - sunk by
many thousands of feet.
The next
step was to decide whether it was possible to detect any particular
contours which might point to an ancient shore line pre dating
the sinking of the area. In the south, there was a clear break
in gradients around the 1,900 fathom (11,400 feet) contour where
a very extensive plain dipped sharply into deeper water. In
the north, much the same had happened but at a considerably
more shallow depth.
It began
to look as if a large land mass, 450 miles across from east
to west, and 300 miles from north to south, had tilted from
north to south and had sunk beneath the waves, leaving only
its mountain peaks showing above the waters - peaks which now
form the ten islands of the Azores.
After further
calculation, we reached the conclusion that the tilting, either
before or during foundering, had been of the order of 0.4 degrees,
as a result of which the south coast had sunk more than 11,000
feet and the north coast only some 6,000 feet.
We then
reconstructed the land profiles to the approximate positions
in
which they should have been before the catastrophe. We re-contoured
the whole area, raising the north coast by 6,000 feet; the south
coast by 11,000 feet; and the intervening area proportionally
to the adopted gradient. The result was the outline map shown
below.
It was now
possible to visualise a great island about the size and shape
of Spain, with high mountain ranges rising over 12,000 feet
above sea level and impressive rivers running in curving valley
systems. In the southeast, a feature which we have called 'The
Great Plain' covered an area in excess of 3,500 square miles,
and was watered by a river comparable in size to the River Thames
in England. It has, and we shall sea, points in common with
the great plain described by Plato in his Critias, as being
a feature of the Island of Atlantis.
The study
on which we have embarked has two parts. The first is to establish
that a large island could have existed in mid-Atlantic in Pre-historic
times; the second is to determine whether there could have been
a connection between the inhabitants of such an island and our
heroes - The Shining Ones.
In our judgement,
the first of these parts has been successfully determined; and
it is proper, therefore, to proceed with an examination of Plato's
detailed description of Atlantis and its inhabitants.
Extract from Chapter 18 The Shining Ones by Christian and
Barbara Joy O'Brien
