Atlantis

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Introduction

Atlantis relates to the city and empire of a group of Anatolian Neolithic farmers (ANFs) in North West Africa who arrived from the Levant/Anatolia during the African Humid Period (AHP) in approximately 7500 BC.

We know that ANFs mixed with indigenous North African Maghrebi and Sub-Saharan Africans (SSAs) to create modern day North Africans whilst other branches of ANFs spread into Southern Europe later diffusing into Northern Europe over the millennia and mixing with indigenous Hunter Gatherers to form Early European Farmers (EEFs). Today ANF admixture makes up a large proportion of the genome of these modern populations, approximately ~30% for North Africans, ~35% for Northern Europeans and ~60% for Southern Europeans.

We know that ANFs migrated into Europe and North Africa at this time, we just didn’t realise how far into North African, that they built Atlantis and from here created a coastal empire extending across much of Europe.

You may not believe this but read this article and you will.

Information from Plato.

The only descriptive account of Atlantis comes to us from Plato. Plato describes the account as coming from a shared relative of himself and Critias seven generations back, the famous statesman Solon. Plato describes Solon receiving the story in note form from Egypt during a visit, with the intension of setting it into an epic poem.

This is the only in-depth account we receive of Atlantis, nonetheless other classical era sources succeeding Plato weigh in on the topic, all of which corroborate the validity of Plato’s account with some providing snippets of additional information. These sources are:

Plato’s account includes a description of:

The use of the same term Atlantis to describe city, country and empire has been the cause of confusion and the text requires the use of context to understand which term Plato is referring to at points. Nonetheless, the account is precise and can be even be broadly codified into the following descriptive statements:

[Notes: Rather than sea/lake and ocean I have left the original Greek words ‘thalassa’ and ‘pontos’. Sizes are translated using 185m = 1 Stadion]

Country description:

City description:

Fertile plain:

Empire description:

Demise of the city

As can be seen, even condensed into thirty three key descriptive statements there is a lot to understand but it’s important to assess a theory against the full extent of information we are provided with.

 

 

Chapter 1: The City

Mapping Plato’s measurements of the city using the typically agreed conversion of 1 Greek Stadion to 185m results in the following diagram:

As can be seen, there is an inner citadel, an acropolis (ἀκρόπολις), this includes one of the most memorable features of the city the three ringed canals or harbours, this is surrounded by a wall (plated in orichalcum (copper alloy)) itself surrounded by a massive habitable zone spanning 9.25km from the inner citadel, this zone contains a wall (plated in tin) and is surrounded by a wall (plated in brass). This final wall is meets at a thalassa (θάλασσα), a term which is explained in the next section. A channel connects the thalassa to the third harbour/ringed canal through the habitable zone.

Already this configuration is contentions. The three walls shown in the habitable zone outside the inner city are most commonly shown inside the inner city. This error is due to a couple of textual misinterpretations and assumptions, understanding why involves a deep, nerdy dive into the text which we’ll do in a following section but first it’s important to understand what is meant by thalassa.

Pelagos, pontos, thalassa

Ancient Greek terms for sea include pelagos, pontos, thalassa and oceanos, Plato uses pelagos, pontos and thalassa in his account. The lists below name which bodies of water each of these terms were used for by Ancient Greek writers.

The headings denote a commonality to each water body list. Pelagos implies coastal water, pontos an expansive or uncertain body of water and thalassa a saline and enclosed body of water. It is important to note that thalassa was also a term used for salty lakes such as Lake Van, the Sea of Galilee and Lake Mareotis.

In Plato’s account there is only one mention of pontos, three mentions of pelagos, and the rest of the mentions are to thalassa. Below are instances from Timeus and Critias that stand out for including seas other than thalassa connecting to the city:

ἔξωθεν ὁρμηθεῖσαν ἐκ τοῦ Ἀτλαντικοῦ πελάγους. τότε γὰρ πορεύσιμον ἦν τὸ ἐκεῖ πέλαγος·

“This power came forth out of the Atlantikos Pelagos, for in those days the Atlantikos Pelagos was navigable..”

An unknown coastal sea is termed: Atlantikos Pelagos

ἐξ ἧς ἐπιβατὸν ἐπὶ τὰς ἄλλας νήσους τοῖς τότε ἐγίγνετο πορευομένοις, ἐκ δὲ τῶν νήσων ἐπὶ τὴν καταντικρὺ πᾶσαν ἤπειρον τὴν περὶ τὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκεῖνον πόντον.

“..from the islands one could pass through the whole of the opposite continent which surrounds the true pontos;”

The Atlantic Ocean is termed: pontos

 τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἐντὸς τοῦ στόματος οὗ λέγομεν
ἔοικε λιμένι στενῷ τινί

“.. for this thalassa which is within the Straits of Hercules is only a certain narrow harbour”

The Mediterranean Sea is termed: thalassa

τῷ μὲν πρεσβυτάτῳ καὶ βασιλεῖ τοῦτο οὗ δὴ καὶ πᾶσα ἡ νῆσος τό τε πέλαγος ἔσχεν ἐπωνυμίαν, Ἀτλαντικὸν λεχθέν, ὅτι τοὔνομ’ ἦν τῷ πρώτῳ βασιλεύσαντι

“But all names were given to him who was the eldest and king of this place, and the whole island, and the pelagos, were called Atlantic, because it was the same as the first king.”

The coastal sea is termed again, named after King Atlas: Atlantikos Pelagos

ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς χαλεπῆς ἐπελθούσης, τό τε παρ’ ὑμῖν μάχιμον πᾶν ἁθρόον ἔδυ κατὰ γῆς, ἥ τε Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος ὡσαύτως κατὰ τῆς θαλάττης δῦσα ἠφανίσθη: διὸ καὶ νῦν ἄπορον καὶ ἀδιερεύνητον γέγονεν τοὐκεῖ πέλαγος, πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος ἐμποδὼν ὄντος, ὃν ἡ νῆσος ἱζομένη παρέσχετο.

“After a single terrible day and night had come upon them, all your warriors sank together into the earth, and the island of Atlantis likewise sank beneath the thalassa and vanished. For this reason that pelagos is even now impassable and unexplorable, because very shallow mud obstructs it — mud which the island, as it settled, supplied.”

Reference to the city sinking into a thalassa and thus a palagos becoming impassable

translations from ChatGPT

What can we say from this? Firstly, Plato refers to open Atlantic Ocean only as an unnamed ‘true pontos’ (expansive body of water). It is clear Pontos is used to refer to the Atlantic Ocean in this passage given the description of the thalassa Mediterranean Sea as “only a certain narrow harbour” in comparison. There’s also a description of what sounds like America as the continent beyond.

Plato’s use of the name Atlantikos Pelagos must refer to a coastal sea within this Atlantic Pontos, as Pelagos are always coastal.

Interestingly, prior to Plato, Herodotus referred to the Ocean of the Atlantic as the ‘Atlantis Thalassa’ using the same Ancient Greek word that Plato uses for Atlantis, Ἀτλαντὶς. In the context of Herodotus, when paired with thalassa, Atlantis means ‘of Atlas’. Whereas Atlantikos is inferred to mean ‘of the Atlantic’.

Plato’s use of pelagos rather than thalassa indicates a regional, coastal sea rather than the full pontos/thalassa of the Atlantic Ocean. The context of this passage is to say the Atlantean fleet came forth from this sea and that this sea was once navigable. Had Plato meant the sea were separated by the open ocean the fleet would have needed to navigate through this pontos as well and therefore the pontos should have been described as once navigable as well, not just the pelagos. To me this is suggestive that there is a direct connection between the Atlantikos Pelagos and the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar).

The rest of the references are made to the body of water immediately around the city of Atlantis opposed to the country, these are all termed as a thalassa. This is a reference to an enclosed body of salty water, and because the Atlantic is termed differently as pontos this thalassa must be outside the Atlantic, as thalassas do not occur within other seas and oceans such as pelagos and pontos can. Most relevantly to the Richat, they are also, on occasion, salty or brackish lakes.

The Walls of the City

If this is too in depth feel free to skip.

If you search for diagrams of Atlantis you’ll find that there’s a lack of consistency with exactly how the walls are placed, most often three walls are shown inside the inner city, in front or behind zones of water, with an additional outer wall surrounding the full city.

This is an error and partially the result of another translational error, the placement of the acropolis. In this section we examine Plato’s placement and description of the walls and the acropolis.

The acropolis initially crops up right at the beginning of the Critias during which Plato is describing the founding, origin story that the Atlanteans had towards the creation of their city. Poseidon falls in love with the earth born woman Clieto and makes love with her, where he finds her living on a small hill in the centre of the island, the hill is described as being 50 stadia from the thalassa and as being turned into an acropolis by Poseidon when he carved the signature rings around this hill. This detail of the original hill being 50 stadia from the thalassa is the first indication of where the the position of the acropolis is, as later on in the text we’re told that the outer zone of water of the inner city is also 50 stadia from the thalassa, therefore immediately is would appear that the outer habour of water marks the edge of this original hill acropolis.

We then pass through a lot of description before encountering a mention of the walls or acropolis again. Plato has just finished describing the sizes of the zones of land and water before making this statement:

ἡ δὲ νῆσος, ἐν ᾗ τὰ βασίλεια ἦν, πέντε σταδίων τὴν διάμετρον εἶχεν. ταύτην δὴ κύκλῳ καὶ τοὺς τροχοὺς καὶ τὴν γέφυραν πλεθριαίαν τὸ πλάτος οὖσαν ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν λιθίνῳ περιεβάλλοντο τείχει, πύργους καὶ πύλας ἐπὶ τῶν γεφυρῶν κατὰ τὰς τῆς θαλάττης διαβάσεις ἑκασταχόσε ἐπιστήσαντες. Critias 116a

“the island, in which the royal palace was, had a diameter of five stadia. This, then, and the rings, and the bridge (being a plethrum in width), they surrounded on both sides with stone wall(s), placing towers and gates upon the bridges at each of the passages of the sea.”

Importantly, sometime nouns in Ancient Greek can be either plural or singular so it reads as “a stone wall” or “stone walls”. This is where confusions have arisen, as all current translations translate the passage to the singular “a stone wall”.

However, the nouns for bridge and towers are specified as either plural or singular, and the terms for bridges are very illuminating. Firstly, Plato describes the central island and surrounding rings, and a singular γέφυραν (bridge), as being surrounded by wall(s). This is important as had the wall(s) and gate towers and bridge been within these rings it should instead be correct to state bridges as plural, unless the only bridge tower within the ringed inner city was the bridge tower of the very last wall.

Next we hear what the island, rings and single bridge are surrounded by; Plato says they are surrounded by γεφύρας (bridges) and πύργους (towers) specified as plural. Towers, ok, there would have been towers on either side of each opening so this information is not useful but multiple bridges wouldn’t make sense for a water channel passing through a single wall. Therefore this implies that we’re talking about multiple walls in general here. But we’ll return to this in a moment.

The passage also describes the wall(s) as “surrounding/enclosing” the rings. To me, this suggests the wall(s) are outside of the third ringed zone of water, but in fairness this is not definitive by this statement alone as it would still be possible for the walls to be between as well as around the zones. However, the following passage clarifies that they are indeed around the zones.

Plato now sets out to describe the walls in detail, stating:

καὶ τοῦ μὲν περὶ τὸν ἐξωτάτω τροχὸν τείχους χαλκῷ περιελάμβανον πάντα τὸν περίδρομον, οἷον ἀλοιφῇ προσχρώμενοι, τοῦ δʼ ἐντὸς καττιτέρῳ περιέτηκον, τὸν δὲ περὶ αὐτὴν τὴν ἀκρόπολιν ὀρειχάλκῳ μαρμαρυγὰς ἔχοντι πυρώδεις.

“And of the wall around the outermost ring they covered the whole circuit with bronze, as if applying an ointment; and the inner one they plated with tin; and the one around the acropolis itself with orichalcum having fiery gleams.”

Here, Plato is telling us that there are three different walls, with the inner wall enclosing the acropolis.

Plato follows a logic to his description; having first described an overview of the organisation of walls and their locations and gate towers collectively Plato then sets out to describe the specifics.

This justifies why it makes sense to interpret the first mention of “wall” as plural, not singular. Rather than singling out one wall for no apparent reason Plato is first describing them collectively in broad terms; made of stone, enclosing the city, each with a tower letting the channel to the thalassa pass through, before then describing the specific appearance of each. Ancient authors do this overview-then-specifics ordering frequently, this is important, as it helps us understand the logic of the description.

Also importantly, Plato hasn’t used the word acropolis since far earlier in the script to describe where Poseidon broke ground around Cleito, but this line assumes that we’re aware that there is an acropolis. It makes sense that the zones of land and water Plato had just finished describing are this acropolis.

Remaining on this passage, the conventional interpretation has been to assume the “outermost ring” is a reference to the outer zone of water of the inner city.

This is inconsistent with the references to the bands of water used previously, Plato instead always refers to them with διώρυξ (ditch) ζώνη (water) and/or θάλασσα (thalassa). Here, he uses τροχὸν alone, τροχὸν translates to wheel, circle, ring, course or circuit, it is a more general circular term and would be unconventional to how Plato has been referring to this zone of water, which makes it less likely that he is referring to the circuit of this zone of water here. The direct implication is that he’s referring to the outermost circuit of the city. We’ll return to this passage in a moment.

Next, Plato returns his focus the inner city, the acropolis:

τὰ δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν βασίλεια ἐντὸς ὧδε κατεσκεύαστο.

“And the royal buildings at the acropolis inside were constructed thus.”

Having previously told us the sizes and positions of the ringed zones of water and land Plato now embarks on setting out the specifics, following the same overview-then-specifics ordering as with the walls. It’s important to note the language here, ἐντὸς literally meaning ‘within’, he is about to discuss the structures within the acropolis.

Plato then describes structures across all three inner ringed zones of land and water, these being:

After this, to move on, Plato makes the following remark:

Ἀλλὰ περὶ μὲν τῶν βασιλείων τοσαῦτα εἰρήσθω·

“But about the royal buildings, let this much have been said.”

Plato has just described, not only the temple on the central island, but structures across all three zones of land and water and to move on has now just labelled all of these as “royal buildings”.

These two beginning and end statements suggest that the acropolis encompasses all these structures and all zones of land and water, not only the very central island as has conventionally been assumed.

Let’s now return to Plato’s description of the walls, remember he states:

“and the [wall] around the acropolis itself with orichalcum having fiery gleams.”

If the acropolis includes all three zones of land and water this last, inner wall of orichalcum is clearly defined as being around the whole inner city.

However, most interpreters tended to assume that acropolis refers to only the central island with the temple to Poseidon, because most common instances of acropolises were elevated and of a certain small size, but not all, and the literal translation of acropolis as ‘higher city’ has metaphorical rather than literal meaning, a ‘spiritually higher’ precinct; it does not necessitate a raised, hilltop, precinct. Equally, although they tended to be a certain small size, much smaller than the 5km wide inner city of Atlantis, their sizes were relative to their surrounding urban city, and there is no size limit on acropolises. Atlantis, as a whole, was far bigger than ancient cities, therefore there is a logic that the central acropolis should be proportionally larger to match. Additionally, acropolises were not used exclusively for temples but all manner of buildings within an inner city, with pedestrian habitation typically being outside this area. Atlantis matches this organisation, the much larger habitable zone lies outside of the three inner ringed zones of water. This takes us to our last wall description:

τῆς θαλάττης ᾔειν ἐν κύκλῳ τεῖχος, πεντήκοντα σταδίους τοῦ μεγίστου τροχοῦ τε καὶ λιμένος ἀπέχον πανταχῇ, καὶ συνέκλειεν εἰς ταὐτὸν πρὸς τὸ τῆς διώρυχος στόμα τὸ πρὸς θαλάττης. τοῦτο δὴ πᾶν συνῳκεῖτο μὲν ὑπὸ πολλῶν καὶ πυκνῶν οἰκήσεων, ὁ δὲ ἀνάπλους καὶ ὁ μέγιστος λιμὴν ἔγεμεν πλοίων καὶ ἐμπόρων ἀφικνουμένων πάντοθεν, φωνὴν καὶ θόρυβον παντοδαπὸν κτύπον τε μεθ’ ἡμέραν καὶ διὰ νυκτὸς ὑπὸ πλήθους παρεχομένων. Critias 117e

“From the thalassa there ran a wall in a circle, fifty stadia distant everywhere from the largest ring and harbour, and it met together at the mouth of the canal on the thalassa side. And all this area was inhabited by many and densely packed dwellings; and the inlet and the greatest harbour were filled with ships and merchants arriving from every direction, producing voices and all kinds of noise and din by day and through the night because of the multitude.”

In this last passage Plato describes the outer wall of the three walls mentioned earlier. The wall encloses the full habitable zone which is a distance of 50 stadia (9.25km) from the last ringed zone of water, all around.

With this information we know the position of the outer-wall and, from the previous description, we know that the walls begin by encompassing of the zones of water with the inner wall surrounding this acropolis. Therefore the only wall we don’t know the position of is the second wall, but we do know that it is between the outer and the inner walls.

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As a side note I’ve heard it argued that these walls couldn’t be outside of the inner rings because they are plated with different metals and it would require far too much metal to coat such large walls.

If we place the walls inside the rings, their circumferences would still come to 6km, 18km and 31km. In no scenario would any of these walls have been able to be fully coated in metal. Rather, I propose that it’s the towered entrances on each wall that you pass through as you precess into the city that are coated in different metals.

Comparing Atlantis to the Richat Structure

Theories connecting the Richat Structure to Atlantis have circulated online for a long time however not many have correctly observed the description Plato provides for the city, as shown again in the diagram below, and therefore most theories myopically focus on only the iconic, memorable inner citadel rings of water and have resorted to stretching the inner citadel to make it fit the rock ridges of the Richat. Below is a diagram of the Richat with subterranean structures labelled (these will come in relevant later) to matching scale beside the diagram of Plato’s city.

As can be seen comparisons are striking. The three stone circular ridges of the Richat are correctly sized to be the, often forgotten, three walls of the city of Atlantis, the inner citadel aligning entirely within the innermost ring of the Richat. The basin of the structure with salt deposits, if filled with water, would become an enclosed body of brackish water, a thalassa. And this was the case in the past, the Richat existed as a lake for millennia during the African Humid Period (see Chapter 2).

A problem occurs though, if the structure was a lake how could the area within the walls have remained a habitable zone? And how could the citadel and ringed harbours have formed in the centre if this was below water level?

This leads to an incredible logical corollary; the entire city was constructed on a floating island/mat of peat. Please bear with me and don’t abandon this article midway, I describe exactly how this works and actually how common this phenomenon is, later on. For now, take my word for it.

Combining the Richat with Plato’s description of the city along with this central peat structure and following George Sarantitis’ observation of the canal route through a gap in the second ring, we arrive at the following organisation:

Morphology and Hydrology of the Richat Structure

Alone, the surface-level alignment of the three stone ridged rings of the Richat with the three walls of Atlantis already makes a very strong case for this site as Atlantis but such speculation opens the door to many new paths to explore. This article provides a complete internally coherent hypothesis (once finished), if there is any aspect missed please leave it in a comment below.

To start with let’s explore what we know of the structure beneath the surface, the geological morphology of the Richat Structure, what this may imply about it’s groundwater hydrology and how this groundwater favours the idea of a formation of peat and suggests a natural explanation for the formation of the iconic rings of clear water around the inner citadel.

The Richat Structure was caused by a magmatic uplift that bulged up into the earth’s crust millions of years ago, causing the different layers of rock to arch upwards, even cracking layers closer to the surface. Erosion than revealed these different layers like a slice through an onion.

Below is a geological diagram of the structure from

Abdeina, E. H., Bazin, S., Chazot, G., Bertrand, H., Le Gall, B., Youbi, N., Sabar, M. S., Bensalah, M. K., & Boumehdi, M. A. (2021). Geophysical modelling of the deep structure of the Richat magmatic intrusion (northern Mauritania): insights into its kinematics of emplacement. Journal of African Earth Sciences, 43(1–3), 347–362.

the green circles denote what were initially considered dykes (cracks due to magma intrusion) but are now considered stone cills, simply where harder layers of rock meet the surface. The black lines indicate assumed karsts (cracks formed by chemical dissolution) locations.

The whole structure is referred to as a hydro-alkaline complex given that the blue zone within the central green circle is a breccia (debris rock type) with up to 4m of cracked rock at the surface formed by hydrothermal activity at some distant point in the past. The alkaline reference (of hydro-alkaline complex) is given due to the slight alkalinity of the rock.

Satellite imagery of the structure shows the presence of large evaporative salt flats as a bluey-white sheen, these can be seen in the lower areas of the basin as well in another lake on the north west side of the plateau. These salt flats indicate these must have been at least largely endorheic lakes, aka they must have held water without leaking, this is because these salt flats form when a large amount of slightly saline water evaporates away. If water could have simply leaked out through the many karsts in the structure than these salt flats wouldn’t have been able to form. The Richat Structure hosts slightly less deep salt halite deposits then equivalent lakes, such as the lake remnants on a lake in the top left of the image. This suggests that there was a good level of water turnover flushing out excess salt. Nonetheless, the salt remains still imply slightly brackish water consistent with the term thalassa.

The cracks (karsts) are important to the hydrology of the structure as they create the potential for connected groundwater routes forming a subterranean aquifer (this type of aquifer known as a fracture aquifer) as well as acting as conduits for this water to daylight into the lake. It could therefore be hypothesised that a network of karsts were charged with rainwater from the flat, higher elevation of the surrounding sandstone plateau, (which is about 50km x 100km in area). This diagram below shows this hypothesised flow direction of groundwater. Note: the diagram is exaggerated in the vertical axis to illustrate the arrangement of geological layers.

As illustrated, water seeping through the sandstone plateau would be channelled upwards towards the centre of the Richat Structure following the contact boundaries of the igneous rock strata. Igneous layers surface at the third rock ridge at the centre of the structure, igneous rock is less permeable and could therefore more effectively act as an aquitard trapping water and channelling it through it’s layer contact boundaries.

I hypothesise that the formation of Atlantis’ signature three ringed canals align with a ringed spring formation within the centre of the structure. How this spring water creates the clear zones of water between the peat will be later explained. Firstly, the observations of their alignment are shown, the inner cill ring, as shown in the above diagram and below magnetics plan, is also widely considered to be a ring dyke of a central karst-collapse breccia, a geological term for a vertical ringed crack, this would aid the daylighting of groundwater along this conduit as a ring of emerging springs. As stated above the third rock ridge of the Richat is where the igneous rock layers begin and as such would have been effective at trapping water below, therefore channelling more water to this exit point on the inside of the ring where it reaches the surface.

Areomagnetics Plan. (Abdeina et al., 2021, Fig. 4)
Abdeina et al., 2021, Fig. 4, Geophysical modelling of the deep structure of the Richat magmatic intrusion (northern Mauritania): insights into its kinematics of emplacement. Journal of African Earth Sciences, 43(1–3), 347–362.

This alignment of size between Plato’s third ring of water and this central karst-collapse breccia is clear. However, what about the first and second of Plato’s rings of water? 

The first ring aligns with proposed emergent springs from the structure’s intrusive igneous core. This is a confirmed observed structure in the Richat; a past column spout of magma once emerged at the centre as a volcano to relieve pressure millions of years ago. The magma and volcano structure have since eroded away but the below ground vertical shaft remains as rock stratified in a vertical direction and, like the central karst-collapse breccia, I propose that cracks along this past core would act as favourable conduits for groundwater. Springs emerging and flowing down off this central hill could therefore fall into the postion Plato provides for the first ring of water.

This is a simplistic diagram to explain what an intrusive igneous core is.

The second (middle) ring’s alignment to springs is less observable. I hypothesis that there is another layer contact boundary in the igneous layers of rock that meets the surface forming another cill and creating this intermediate ring. Like the first cill, with layer boundary a would act as a preferential conduit for groundwater, but such a structure is only faintly detectable in available scan information. Nonetheless, we have above ground topographical data and low resolution aeromagnetic below-ground imagery so I’ve aligned these in the image below to see if there is any indication of a ringed pattern in the rock that might indicate an inner contact boundary ring, and I think there is a slight indication of this inner circle in both the topography and magnetics plans. I draw where hypothesise this contact boundary ring is located in the image on the right together with the other two known structures, as the three potential spring locations; the two geological rings and the hill of the intrusive igneous core.

Full city and inner citadel showing subsurface structures, size comparisons

Putting the hypothesis all together, the diagram below shows how we can assume groundwater would channel to each of these three zones to emerge as springs in the bedrock; the karst-collapse breccia vertical ring crack, the intermediate layer contact boundary ring and the intrusive igneous core.

Springs and Peat

It has now been shown how the topography of the Richat matches the three walls of Atlantis and how the subsurface cill structures align with Plato’s rings, and that springs might have emerged at these cill locations but I haven’t explained how springs could have caused the matching clear water zones to occur within a peat mat above, or why there should even be a surface of peat on this paleolake.

Why and how would peat accumulate here? And how would springs have created the signature ringed canals?

 

Peat

Peat is a term for the accumulation of half decayed or undecayed plant matter. It is most commonly found as an organic layer on the surface of lakes or marshes and can over time become incredibly deep. In fact, it can be one of the fastest forms of organic matter accumulation with some peat bogs able to exceed 2mm of gain per year.

The phenomenon is triggered when certain habitat conditions are met and then, to a degree, self perpetuates through feedback loops. The key is for there to be a discrepancy between the rate of new plant growth and the rate of decomposition; growth high, decomposition low.

Decomposition rates are naturally lowered when conditions are acidic, anoxic and/or cold, as all of these reduce bacteria grow. Once a peat bog has initiated, the backlog of slow decaying matter produces acid and uses up oxygen, these conditions exacerbate if water is stagnant. A surface mat of peat can then further reduce water’s ability to dissolve new oxygen from air contact. Thus, a shift into a peat dominated system is intensified. 

 

The Effect of Spring Water on Peat

Spring water is often more oxygen depleted and can also be colder than rainwater. The colder temperature is due to evaporative loss of heat during the process of seeping into the earth and the loss of oxygen is due to the water’s oxidation of rocks whilst it’s flowing underground. Therefore, spring water can act as a catalyst for the formation of peat.

There is an example of this very phenomenon happening in a lake in Italy, Lake Posta Fibreno. The lake is broadly stagnant but receives cold spring water, this has resulted in the formation of a 4m deep, 30m wide floating peat island supporting a small woodland. The top 1m of the island formed in the last 50 years ago. Granted, this layer isn’t true, dense peat but rather a spongy mass of S. palustre moss, but still nonetheless demonstrates the speed of potential matter accumulation.

Highly anomalous accumulation rates of C and N recorded by a relic, free-floating peatland in Central Italy – Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Posta-Fibreno-free-floating-island-la-Rota-a-View-of-the-Posta-Fibreno-lake_fig4_313964878 [accessed 21 Feb 2026]

 

A Lake in and the Richat

Before moving on to its potential habitat for peat, we should first further establish the evidence we have that the Richat was indeed a lake. As I mentioned earlier on there are clear salt flats within the structure, to elaborate on this the salt is chemically and nutritionally distinct from seawater salt deposits, of which there are some in the Sahara from an ancient sea millions of years ago. The salt here shows clear signs of being an evaporative lake deposit. 

Other evidence of water comes from the indentation of a water outlet channel on the south side. Lastly, many crustacean and mollusc shells have been found within the structure.

 

Spring Water in the Richat

I’ve stated my geological reasons for how spring water could have emerged at the centre of the structure. To recap the reasons for this; the many karsts and dykes apparent on the surface of the structure’s basin indicate the potential for a fracture aquifer below, charged with water from the massive, 50x100km surrounding raised sandstone plateau.

Firsthand evidence of springs can also comes from Professor Michael Jébrak, a co-author of

Matton, G., Jébrak, M. & Lee, J.K.W. (2005). Resolving the Richat enigma: Doming and hydrothermal karstification above an alkaline complex. Geology, 33(8), pp.665–668.

who observed evidence of past alkaline springs near the side of the basin via evidence of zeolite deposits (this testimony is via personal communication, September 2025). This spring evidence is at a different location to the centre but it demonstrates water was seeping through the plateau and emerging as springs.

Theirs is also firsthand testimony of present day spring water being discovered when digging into the centre of the structure from the team involved in making the documentary Visting Atlantis. 

 

Peat in the Richat

Would the conditions of this lake have favoured the production of peat? The basin’s fairly unique topology of concentric rock ridges means that water within these ridges would have been almost entirely contained and thus would have been stagnant. The water outside these ridges would instead receive rainwater streams down from the banks of the plateau.

This stagnant water fulfils one of the means for slowing decomposition, as stagnant water, with organic matter in it, becomes depleted in oxygen and increased in acidity. The spring water I hypothesise entering this zone may also have been oxygen depleted and potentially slightly colder than rainwater. There is also plenty of limital zones where the rocks meet the surface to act as substrates for peat to initially take hold. Together these factors would have made this central zone very susceptible to falling into a peat system, which as I’ve said before creates a self perpetuating cycle of increased acid and decreased oxygen.

 

The Mechanism 

Finally, we can assume that groundwater emerging at the first, outer cill layer contact boundary ring, in the image below, was not as deep underground as the subsequent inner rings, because each is stacked atop the next. If this groundwater wasn’t as deep it would be less likely to be geothermally warmed, water generally needs to be xxm deep to receive geothermal heat. Therefore, it might be that cool springs emerged at this ring which would have aided the production of peat as described previously.

Water emerging at the following cill contact boundaries would have needed to past deeper underground, with more likelihood of picking up geothermal heat. If so, warm spring water would immediately rise to the surface and warm the immediate above area before the warmth can dissipate via evaporation. The slight increase in temperature would deter peat from forming in these areas, as discussed previously, this would increase decomposition flipping the balance of rate of decomposition to rate of new organic litter in favour of decomposition. Thus the formation of the matching pattern of clear water in the surface above the pattern of springs in the central rings.

Chapter 2: The Country

African Humid Period and Timings

Contrary to common awareness the AHP did not result in a sudden, uniform verdant North Africa from 12000 BC to 6500 BC but was intermittent and slowly develop. The region I’m interested in the Adrar region of Mauritania. Here, like much of North Africa, the AHP only took significant effect after the Younger Dryas, ramping up over the millennia from 9500 BC onwards.

The below table contains approximations for annual precipitation ranges for the Adrar region in 500 year increments created using AI to reference available studies. As a caveat I should stress that this table is not from a study or meta-analysis and is not scientifically verified but for lack of available data it is my own approximate. You might note that the error bar range is very high, this is because for this region of Africa there is limited precipitation data. Precipitation data is most reliably obtained from measuring past paleolake levels and is this region few have been measured. The other two data sets we have are pollen samples and off-shore Sahara dust deposits. Pollen samples indicate whether grasses or closed-canopy tree cover are dominant, this region fluctuates between desert and grassland never entering closed-canopy tree cover. Sahara dust deposits indicate how deserty the region was and is good for approximating the rainfall during the more arid periods. Therefore it is really only the pollen sample data that provides an upper limit to the rainfall, as beyond a certain amount of annual precipitation closed-canopy tree cover becomes inevitable. However we also know that for this region, like much of North Africa, rainfall was seasonal due to paleoclimate physics models and evidence of fire adapted ecosystems. Concentrating annual rainfall into a wet season greatly increases the annual precipitation threshold required for closed-canopy tree cover dominance, raising it to approximately 1000mm/yr. In the table upper rainfall mean estimates are still well below 1000mm/yr at a maximum of 780mm/yr, this is because rainfall broadly increases as longitudes approach the equator and there continued to be hundreds of kilometres of grass dominated biome before closed-canopy forest biome began.

Notably average precipitation below ~250mm/yr constitutes arid/desert conditions and average precipitation below ~400mm/yr constitutes semi-arid/dry conditions. Therefore it is only really in the period of 8000BC to 6500BC that rainfall is significant enough to create verdant conditions suitable for plentiful farming or subsidence.

cont..
Impression of the region during the height of the AHP vs a satellite image of the site today

Chapter 3: The Empire

We’ve established where the city was, how it came about, it’s demise, details of the country.

It might appear that a section on the empire is a necessary add-on, a speculative guess, however it’s not, we can be incredibly precise about the locations of the ten kingdoms of Atlantis with the information we are provided.

The most relavent passage from Plato on these kingdoms is below.

“He also begat and brought up five pairs of male children, dividing the island of Atlantis into ten portions: he gave to the first-born of the eldest pair his mother’s dwelling and the surrounding allotment, which was the largest and best, and made him king over the rest; the others he made princes, and gave them rule over many men and a large territory.

And he named them all: the eldest, who was king, he named Atlas, and from him the whole island and the ocean received the name of Atlantic. To his twin-brother, who was born after him, and obtained as his lot the extremity of the island toward the Pillars of Heracles, as far as the country which is still called the region of Gades in that part of the world, he gave the name which in the Hellenic language is Eumelus, in the language of the country which is named after him, Gadeirus.

Of the second pair of twins, he called one Ampheres and the other Evaemon. To the third pair of twins he gave the name Mneseus to the elder, and Autochthon to the one who followed him. Of the fourth pair of twins he called the elder Elasippus and the younger Mestor, And of the fifth pair be gave to the elder the name of Azaes, and to the younger Diaprepes.

All these and their descendants were the inhabitants and rulers of divers islands in the open sea; and also, as has been already said, they held sway in the other direction over the country within the Pillars as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia (Italy).“

from Critias, Translated by Benjamin Jowett

In the Timaeus Plato

cont..

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