the elusive sunken continent revealed

However, anyone who inspects a chart of the oceanic bottoms in the region of Indonesia such as the Ice Age Map of Indonesia shown in Fig. 1 below, will readily concede that the South China Sea encircled by Indonesia indeed formed a continent during the last glaciation, which ended some 11,600 years ago. This chart clearly shows the sunken continent of Lemurian Atlantis in Indonesia, as well as the extensive sunken strip of Indian Atlantis at the Indus Delta.

The map leaves no room for doubt about the reality of what we are affirming concerning Lemurian and Indian Atlantis, one almost wholly sunken, and the other sunken to a very considerable extension. We remark that this map — in contrast to most others presenting proposed sites for Atlantis and/or Lemuria — is purely scientific, rather than an invention of ours or of others. It is based on the detailed geophysical reconstruction of the seafloors in the region in question, and portrays the areas of depth under 100 meters, which were obviously exposed during the Ice Age, when sea level dropped by that amount and even more.

In fact, several strictly scientific, similar maps exist, and can be seen elsewhere, inclusive in the Internet. One of these maps, was published in the National Geographic Magazine (vol. 174, No. 4, Oct. 1988, pg. 446-7) and is reproduced, for comparison, in Fig. 2 below. It shows the world as it was some 18,000 years ago, at the peak of the last glaciation of the Pleistocene Ice Age. As can be seen, this map corresponds quite closely with ours, shown in Fig. 1.

In particular, please note the huge chunk of land, of continental dimensions, to the south of Southeast Asia, and which became sunken when sea level rose, at the end of the Pleistocene. Another sizable piece of land in the Indus Delta, the site of the second Atlantis, also disappeared likewise, at that occasion. No other regions of the world display a similar event, including the Americas (not shown). The conclusion is that Atlantis, if Plato was in fact speaking truthfully, could only have been located in that region of the world.

As both maps above show, a huge extension — of continental size — prolonged Southeast Asia all the way down to Australia. This continental-sized land was indeed "larger than Asia [Minor] and Libya [North Africa] put together”, exactly as Plato affirms. It is seen to have been about two or three times larger than continental-sized India. It was also far larger than Australia, shown exaggerated due to the peculiarities of the projection utilized.

The Indonesian Islands and the Malay Peninsula that we nowadays observe are the unsunken relicts of Lemurian Atlantis, the lofty volcanic mountains that became the volcanic islands of this region, the true site of Paradise in all ancient traditions. The sunken portion of continental extension now forms the muddy, shallow bottoms of the South China Sea. It is encircled by Indonesia and forms the boundary of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.

Then, as now, Indonesia formed the divide of the New and the Ancient Worlds; what the ancients called Ultima Thule (“Ultimate Divide”). Thule also corresponded to what our elders named the Pillars of Hercules, which, according to Plato, were placed “just in front of Atlantis” (hyper ten Heraklei Nyssai).

The Pillars of Hercules were also the impassable frontier between the Old and the New Worlds, also called Orient and Occident. These two are sundered by the volcanic island arc of Indonesia, truly the boundary of the Tectonic Plates that form the Ancient and the New Worlds. This barrier to navigation, in the region of Atlantis is also insistently mentioned in Plato and other ancient sources on Atlantis.

the great rift and the khasma mega of hesiod

The great rift that came to separate the islands of Java and Sumatra, caused by the subsidence of the Krakatoa volcano turned into a giant submarine caldera, which now forms the Sunda Strait. This great rift was very well known of the ancients. Hesiod called it Khasma Mega (“Great Rift”), a designative he learnt from the Hindus. This people called it (in Sanskrit) by names such as Abhvan (“Great Abyss”), Kalamukha (“Black Hole”), Aurva (“Fiery Pit”) Vadava-mukha (“Fiery Submarine Mare”), and so on. This Great Abyss is also the same one that the Egyptians called Nun, and which the Mesopotamians named Apzu (“Abyss”).

Hesiod and several other ancient authorities place this Khaos (“Divide”) or Khasma Mega (“Giant Abyss”) at the world’s divide, at the very entrance to Hell (Tartarus). Hesiod also places Atlas and his Pillar (Mt. Atlas) at this gloomy spot where the ancient navigators such as Ulysses and the Argonauts met their doom. As we said above, this terrifying Black Hole — the archetype of all such that haunt Man’s imagination — is indeed the Krakatoa’s fiery caldera, ready to revive at doom, at least in Hindu traditions on the Vadava-mukha.

what happened during the pleistocene?

Let us recapitulate what happened during the Pleistocene Ice Age, for its true significance seems to have escaped the notice of all Atlantologists thus far.

This is how Ice Ages start. Converted into clouds by the sun, sea water is carried into the continents by the wind, where it pours down as either rain, hail or snow. If conditions are right, as they were then, this downfalling water is retained in glaciers that end up covering the temperate regions with a shroud of ice that is one or two miles thick. Sea level consequently drops by 100-150 meters or even more, exposing the shallow bottoms of the sea.

Such was the case of the South China Sea, whose depth seldom exceeds 60 meters or so, as we show in the Map of Fig. 1. When the Ice Age ends, the process is reverted. The glaciers melt away, and their meltwater quickly drains into the sea. In consequence, the bottoms previously exposed as dry land become submerged once again.

As we see, the world works as a kind of flip-flop or swing, forever oscillating between the extremes of cold and heat. Interestingly enough, it is Life itself that equilibrates the balance, introducing a negative feedback that counteracts the tendency for the world to freeze or to sizzle. For instance, if carbon dioxide (CO2) increases in the atmosphere, the temperature tends to go up with the so-called Hothouse Effect. This is precisely what we observe in sizzling Venus, whose atmosphere is almost pure CO2. In gelid Mars, whose atmosphere (and Life) was almost all lost in a tremendous cataclysm – probably caused by the fall of a meteorite of planetoidal size — the opposite swing took place.

Wherever Life exists, as on Earth, increased CO2 contents of the atmosphere also results in increased photosynthesis. Plants grow more luxuriously, fixing the excess carbon dioxide in themselves, and alleviating the situation. The opposite process happens if the CO2 content of the atmosphere is reduced for some reason. Photosynthesis is consequently reduced and plant matter – mainly the plankton in the seas, rather than the tropical forests — decreases, liberating CO2. This increases the atmospheric content, tending to increase earth’s temperature back to its normal value.

However, this compensation only works within rigid limits, and any excessive perturbation can trigger an Ice Age or a Hot Age. Like with flip-flops and balances, the transition is enhanced by positive feedback, and quickly leads to the extreme situations that are, again, stable and permanent until triggered back on again. For instance if the seas warm up, the solubility of CO2 is decreased, and its atmospheric content increases, tending to further increase earth’s temperature, and vice-versa.

Moreover, an ice cover effectively reflects sunlight back towards outer space, reducing the amount of solar heat absorbed by the earth. Its temperature consequently drops, and the glaciers further increase, until they cover all the temperate regions of earth. In the absence of Life, we have the two extremes instanced by our two neighboring planets, Venus and Mars. As we said above, Venus is as hot as hell, whereas Mars is completely frozen up, as if to vividly exemplify to us all the two extremes of lifeless conditions.

the cause of the ice ages

The causes of the Ice Ages and of the periodic advance and retreat of the continental glaciers is not well known. But, to believe the myths, the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age was due to the cataclysmic explosion of Mt. Atlas, the one which wiped the twin Atlantises out of the map.

Mount Atlas — “the Pillar of Heaven” that decorated Lemurian Atlantis — was an immense volcanic peak in the region that now corresponds to the island arc of Indonesia. To be more precise, this volcano was the terrible Krakatoa, even today still alive and very active, despite its monumental explosion in Atlantean times. After its colossal explosion, the Krakatoa volcano sunk away underseas, becoming the giant caldera that now forms Sunda’s Strait between Java and Sumatra.

This giant caldera — fully 150 km across — is the “Fiery Submarine Mare” (Vadava-mukha) that we commented above. The giant explosion of the Holy Mountain is attested not only by the worldwide myths that recount the end of Paradise (Atlantis). Similar cataclysms in this remote region of the world are also testified by the tektite belt and the volcanic ash layer that covers most of the South Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia and Southeast Asia.¹

The ashes and dust liberated by the gigantic explosion were carried away by the winds, and covered the glaciers of North Asia and North America with a dark veil of carbonized matter. The result was an increased absorption of sunlight and a quick melting away of the glaciers that covered the continents beyond the Tropical Regions.

thermal runaway and the quaternary extinctions

The process of glacier melting was far from uniform, as many geologists of the Darwinian school tend to think. The meltwater of the glaciers quickly flowed into the seas, creating huge stresses between the overloaded sea bottom and the alleviated continents. Earth’s crust cracked and rifted at many places, originating volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis of unprecedented proportions. And the violent process continued, impelled by its own momentum, until it was finally complete and the earth had quit the Ice Age. In this terrible event — the same one that the myths call the Flood — some 70% of the species of great mammals became extinct.

This self-sustaining, degeneratively increasing process is what physicists call “positive feedback”, and is identical to the one that causes the transitions of electronic flip-flops in electronic computers and such. It also corresponds to another physical process called “thermal runaway”, which happens, for instance, on a global scale in the Hothouse Effect. Increased temperature of the earth tends to liberate the CO2 (carbonic gas) dissolved in sea water to the atmosphere, since its solubility decreases with temperature.

The extra atmospheric CO2 further tends to increase global warming, liberating further amounts of CO2, and so on until all of it is liberated to the atmosphere, and the earth becomes overheated. This is possibly what happened on sizzling Venus, perhaps billions of years ago. And it may well be the case that Venus also had Life, as Mars apparently did too, as we are starting to learn.

Geologists call the widespread mortality that took place at the end of the Pleistocene by the name of Quaternary Extinctions. But they are foiled at explaining their cause, and none of the literally dozens of scientific theories hereto proposed to explain the cause of Ice Ages have been consensualy accepted by the scientific community. Among the extinct species we had several magnificent animals: the mammoth, the mastodon, the saber-toothed tiger, the cave bear, the giant sloths, dozens of species of camelids, cervids, cavalids and, very probably, the Neandertal and the Cro-Magnon men, who became extinct at about this date for some unexplained reason that can only have been linked to this one.

No, the ancient myths in no way overstate the universal extent and violence of the Flood cataclysm. The worldwide mass extinctions of the end of the Quaternary (the Pleistocene Ice Age) attest, most unequivocally, that the brutality of the cataclysm was truly Velikovskian in extent, if not in nature.

And the instances of both Mars and Venus are Celestial witnesses of what may indeed happen to the Earth if we persist in abusing her the way we presently do. Are these two planets the Two Witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation (11:8), “their corpses exposed in the streets of the Great City (the skies?) for all to see and marvel”? I would not know, but I fear they could well be so. Aren’t these witnesses of permanent death on a planetary scale indeed perhaps the scariest thing in the entire sky?