4 ms·

Iceland may be the tip of a sunken continent

25 points by dnetesn 5y ago

akomtu 5y ago
Sounds like geologists are rediscovering Atlantis, calling it Icelandia this time. They should also get suspicious about the Rapa Nui island, make a wild guess about the connection between the two islands and then make an even wilder guess about what the rapa nui monuments really are.
- dilippkumar 5y ago
  By sheer coincidence, I was reading Graham Hancock's "Magicians of the Gods" right before logging into HN. His thesis is that there was an advanced civilization - "Atlantis" - that was wiped out by a comet impact around 10,000 BC. I honestly don't know what to make of this book. It has rigorous research and several references and citations about the younger dryas impact hypothesis. He brings in multiple folk tales, tribal origin stories and mythologies that suggest that the comet impact and the subsequent flooding are recorded in oral traditions. Then he goes off into the deep end with History Channel's ancient aliens style conjectures about the Pyramids of Giza and various references to "the seven sages" who bring advanced knowledge from Atlantis to reboot civilization post comet-impact. It's totally entertaining in the same way that watching serious people talk about crazy UFO stories is interesting. And like any conspiracy theory, there is enough room to have fun thinking about how much truth could really be lurking underneath it all. Pure fun, if you have absolutely nothing better to do with your time.
  - akomtu 5y ago
    Iirc, the name "Atlantis" was given by Plato to the last piece of that big continent that sank around that time. Per other sources, that civilisation called themselves "Lanka people".
  - rfwhyte 5y ago
    Graham Hancock is an utter charlatan who willfully manipulates and mispresents the truth for profit. There are so many gaping holes in his theories he purposefully ignores because addressing them would require him to completely discard his profitable pseudo-scientific nonsense. I get it though, I too went down the rabbit hole of the whole "Lost ancient civilizations" thing, but the deeper I got, the more I realized the whole notion is utterly missing any kind of real scientific underpinnings. YouTuber / archaeologist Stefan Milo made this pretty comprehensively damming rebuttal video to Hancock's so called "Theories" that does a far better job explaining the specifics than I ever could, and I highly recommend watching it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTkDkSbO-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTkDkSbO-4
    - dilippkumar 5y ago
      > YouTuber / archaeologist Stefan Milo made this pretty comprehensively damming rebuttal video to Hancock's so called "Theories" that does a far better job explaining the specifics... I just finished watching the video and unfortunately I don't buy it at all. Now Graham Hancock is clearly peddling some hard-to-believe theories, but this rebuttal video doesn't do much to refute him. He takes the weakest possible interpretation of Graham's work and asks "where is the evidenc?" in multiple ways. I think the same rebuttal would be stronger if he addressed why the track record of archeologists so far have been very credible and that they have a history of testing out falsifiable theories by looking for negative results. For example "we don't expect to find any evidence for human activity below this depth in this region - and look, we didn't find anything". Graham's argument rests heavily on archeologists not doing a good job and the easiest way to dismiss him is to show otherwise. This is easy to do with Physicists looking for particles that would poke holes into the standard model for example. I'd love to see a solid rebuttal for Hancock's theories that doesn't rest upon "consensus among archeologists" without showing why the same archeologists are credible.
leereeves 5y ago
Why would this be a continent? A "nearly Texas-size continent" would be about the same size as Madagascar, and much smaller than Greenland, and we don't call Madagascar or Greenland continents. The smallest landmass usually called a continent, Australia, is about 10x larger than Texas.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- DamnInteresting 5y ago
  The layman definition of 'continent' refers to landmasses, but the geological definition refers to more or less discrete sections of continental crust.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  I has to do with the underlying plate right? There are chunks of continental crust floating on the Earth's mantle and we sort of arbitrarily assign continent-ness to them loosely based on history and which plate they're sitting on.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > A "nearly Texas-size continent" would be about the same size as Madagascar, and much smaller than Greenland, and we don't call Madagascar or Greenland continents. IIRC, the definition of "continent" in some contexts is not solely based on size. Continental crust is geologically different than oceanic crust, so if you find a bunch of it sunken underwater, it arguably a continent (geologically). But it's not like there's a really solid definition for "continent" (e.g. IIRC, Europe is one almost entirely for cultural reasons).
- teh_klev 5y ago
  There isn't a formal definition of what a continent should be, the naming of these things is a bit loose. Some of it comes from geology, others the politics of geography. There are such things as micro-continents (which Madagascar would fall into). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_fragment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_fragment According to this article, sure it's Wikipedia, but I learned this in geography class at school, "Continents are the largest landmass of a particular continental plate" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_continents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_co... By this "simplified" map of continental plates then the lower half of Central America is technically a continent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#/media/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#/media/File:Pl...

25 points by dnetesn 5y ago

Sounds like geologists are rediscovering Atlantis, calling it Icelandia this time. They should also get suspicious about the Rapa Nui island, make a wild guess about the connection between the two islands and then make an even wilder guess about what the rapa nui monuments really are.

dilippkumar 5y ago
By sheer coincidence, I was reading Graham Hancock's "Magicians of the Gods" right before logging into HN. His thesis is that there was an advanced civilization - "Atlantis" - that was wiped out by a comet impact around 10,000 BC. I honestly don't know what to make of this book. It has rigorous research and several references and citations about the younger dryas impact hypothesis. He brings in multiple folk tales, tribal origin stories and mythologies that suggest that the comet impact and the subsequent flooding are recorded in oral traditions. Then he goes off into the deep end with History Channel's ancient aliens style conjectures about the Pyramids of Giza and various references to "the seven sages" who bring advanced knowledge from Atlantis to reboot civilization post comet-impact. It's totally entertaining in the same way that watching serious people talk about crazy UFO stories is interesting. And like any conspiracy theory, there is enough room to have fun thinking about how much truth could really be lurking underneath it all. Pure fun, if you have absolutely nothing better to do with your time.
- akomtu 5y ago
  Iirc, the name "Atlantis" was given by Plato to the last piece of that big continent that sank around that time. Per other sources, that civilisation called themselves "Lanka people".
- rfwhyte 5y ago
  Graham Hancock is an utter charlatan who willfully manipulates and mispresents the truth for profit. There are so many gaping holes in his theories he purposefully ignores because addressing them would require him to completely discard his profitable pseudo-scientific nonsense. I get it though, I too went down the rabbit hole of the whole "Lost ancient civilizations" thing, but the deeper I got, the more I realized the whole notion is utterly missing any kind of real scientific underpinnings. YouTuber / archaeologist Stefan Milo made this pretty comprehensively damming rebuttal video to Hancock's so called "Theories" that does a far better job explaining the specifics than I ever could, and I highly recommend watching it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTkDkSbO-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTkDkSbO-4
  - dilippkumar 5y ago
    > YouTuber / archaeologist Stefan Milo made this pretty comprehensively damming rebuttal video to Hancock's so called "Theories" that does a far better job explaining the specifics... I just finished watching the video and unfortunately I don't buy it at all. Now Graham Hancock is clearly peddling some hard-to-believe theories, but this rebuttal video doesn't do much to refute him. He takes the weakest possible interpretation of Graham's work and asks "where is the evidenc?" in multiple ways. I think the same rebuttal would be stronger if he addressed why the track record of archeologists so far have been very credible and that they have a history of testing out falsifiable theories by looking for negative results. For example "we don't expect to find any evidence for human activity below this depth in this region - and look, we didn't find anything". Graham's argument rests heavily on archeologists not doing a good job and the easiest way to dismiss him is to show otherwise. This is easy to do with Physicists looking for particles that would poke holes into the standard model for example. I'd love to see a solid rebuttal for Hancock's theories that doesn't rest upon "consensus among archeologists" without showing why the same archeologists are credible.

leereeves 5y ago

Why would this be a continent? A "nearly Texas-size continent" would be about the same size as Madagascar, and much smaller than Greenland, and we don't call Madagascar or Greenland continents. The smallest landmass usually called a continent, Australia, is about 10x larger than Texas.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
DamnInteresting 5y ago
The layman definition of 'continent' refers to landmasses, but the geological definition refers to more or less discrete sections of continental crust.
ch4s3 5y ago
I has to do with the underlying plate right? There are chunks of continental crust floating on the Earth's mantle and we sort of arbitrarily assign continent-ness to them loosely based on history and which plate they're sitting on.
tablespoon 5y ago
> A "nearly Texas-size continent" would be about the same size as Madagascar, and much smaller than Greenland, and we don't call Madagascar or Greenland continents. IIRC, the definition of "continent" in some contexts is not solely based on size. Continental crust is geologically different than oceanic crust, so if you find a bunch of it sunken underwater, it arguably a continent (geologically). But it's not like there's a really solid definition for "continent" (e.g. IIRC, Europe is one almost entirely for cultural reasons).
teh_klev 5y ago
There isn't a formal definition of what a continent should be, the naming of these things is a bit loose. Some of it comes from geology, others the politics of geography. There are such things as micro-continents (which Madagascar would fall into). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_fragment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_fragment According to this article, sure it's Wikipedia, but I learned this in geography class at school, "Continents are the largest landmass of a particular continental plate" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_continents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_co... By this "simplified" map of continental plates then the lower half of Central America is technically a continent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#/media/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#/media/File:Pl...