The legend of Atlantis, a story first spread by Plato in 360 BC, has fascinated generations ever since. And now Google Earth could have found the lost ancient civilization in an afternoon. Well, maybe.

For those not aware of the legend of the lost city of Atlantis, here’s a brief summary. In the account spread since Plato first mentioned it in two dialogs known as Timaeus and Critias, Atlantis was a powerful naval-faring civilization, which suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth around 9000 BC. Ever since, intrigued scholars have searched for the island nation now thought to be somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

At the beginning of February, Google Earth 5.0 launched, and the most exciting addition was Google Ocean. This new feature added a detailed bathymetric map of the ocean floor to the already multi-layered Google Earth.

Just over two weeks later, and a guy by the name of Bernie Bamford claims to have found what he believes could be Atlantis while using Google Earth. As can be seen in the picture above, what Bamford claims to have found is a rectangular set of lines formed in a grid pattern in the middle of the ocean.

According to The Sun newspaper, the area is the size of Wales, and is located on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean 620 miles off the west coast of Africa. Intriguingly, the area, near to the Canary Islands, is one of the locations Plato originally suggested for the site of Atlantis. For those who want to check out the site themselves on Google Earth, the co-ordinates as suggested by The Daily Telegraph, are 31 15′15.53N 24 15′30.53W.

Google has responded to the claims that its application has been used to find Atlantis by stating:

Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.

The fact that there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world’s oceans.

Oh, let us dream for a while will you? Surely there’s the outside chance that these aren’t just the lines created by a boat while surveying and that it is the lost city of Atlantis. No? Damn, I was so hopeful as well. Whatever the truth, be sure to keep your eyes peeled when using Google Earth – as this proves, you never know what you might find.

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Entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 10:18 pm under Google, Internet, Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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