Spartel Bank or Majuán Bank is a submerged former island located in the

Strait of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Fe ...

near

Cape Spartel Cape Spartel (; ; ) is a promontory in Morocco about above sea level at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, 12 km west of Tangier. It is the northwesternmost point of the African continent. Below the cape are the Caves of Hercules. Des ...

and the Spartel Sill. Its highest point is currently below the surface. Spartel Bank is one of several seamounts in the bed of Gibraltar Strait; similar but deeper seamounts are found at Camarinal Sill and further east. These represent landslide blocks which slid south from the north bank of the Strait of Gibraltar when the strait was formed, possibly through erosion by inflowing waters of the

Zanclean flood The Zanclean flood or Zanclean deluge is theorized to have refilled the Mediterranean Sea 5.33 million years ago. This flooding ended the Messinian salinity crisis and reconnected the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, although it i ...

. It vanished under the surface approximately 12,000 years ago due to rising ocean levels from melting ice caps after the

last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered m ...

. It has been proposed by researchers Jacques Collina-Girard and Marc-André Gutscher as a site for the legendary lost island of

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

. In follow-up correspondence, however, Gutscher indicated that the island could not have been Atlantis, referring to Plato's description of a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

society, which Spartel could not have supported at the time. A detailed review in the ''

Bryn Mawr Classical Review ''Bryn Mawr Classical Review'' (''BMCR''), founded in 1990, is an open access journal that as of 2008 published reviews of scholarly work in the field of classical studies including classical archaeology. The journal describes itself as the sec ...

'' comments on the discrepancies in Collina-Girard's dates and use of coincidences, concluding that he "has certainly succeeded in throwing some light upon some momentous developments in human prehistory in the area west of Gibraltar. Just as certainly, however, he has not found Plato's Atlantis."

Notes

Atlantis Former islands Seamounts of the Atlantic Ocean Pseudoarchaeology {{Andalusia-geo-stub

See also

Notes