On a very amusing piece of news which has developed the last few days (and even got some coverage in The Sun!) the lost city of Atlantis is still lost, despite hopes that Google Earth had located the fabled city on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean!
Observers noted what seemed to be a grid of streets and the outlines of a big city on the sea floor about 960km (600 miles) off the African coast. Experts had said this was one of the possible sites of the city described by Plato, the Greek philosopher.
But Google has just revealed that the lines represented sonar data collected from boats. "It's true that many amazing discoveries have been made in Google Earth including a pristine forest in Mozambique that is home to previously unknown species and the remains of an Ancient Roman villa," a Google statement said. "In this case, however, what users are seeing is an artefact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor," it was added.
"The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data. The fact there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world's oceans." It is in my opinion incredibly intriguing, amusing yet fascinating that we've now reached a digitization point in time where technology like Google Earth can be associated with the discovery of mythical Atlantis. You can find the original The Sun article below for a bit of light entertainment!
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2255989.ece
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