University of Hartford archaeologist Richard Freund said electro-imaging systems designed for gas and oil exploration have identified shapes first described by Plato about 360 B.C., and that artifacts and other evidence point to the lost island, The Hartford (Conn.) Courant reported Tuesday.

After German researchers identified an anomaly in a satellite photograph of the 250-square-mile marsh, Spanish, Canadian and U.S. researchers got involved, including Freund's group, which includes students from the University of Hartford.

If Atlantis, which according to some stories was a naval power about 9600 B.C., was destroyed in a day as Plato said, there is the possibility it was wiped out by a tsunami, Freund said.

"If it was a tsunami, it brings water in and sucks things out," Freund said, so he directed his team to look at a place where the water comes into the marsh, which dries out just once a year.

The team found some ancient walls in the area, Freund said.

Some scholars say Plato took inspiration for his story of Atlantis from more contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 B.C or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415-413 B.C.

When the researchers took a core sample at the Spanish site reaching more than 40 feet, they found ancient wood dating to 440 B.C.

They also found a layer of methane in the core sample, an indication that a lot of living things -- people, animals, plants -- may have all died all at once.

"Finding this one layer of methane is a very telltale sign of a society that is destroyed in one fell swoop," Freund said. "This was in the middle of nowhere, and there was no methane layer found in the area except where we were working."

Despite all this evidence, he said, it's still difficult to say definitively that this was Atlantis, although continued excavations are planned.

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US overdue for huge Pacific quake: experts
Washington (AFP) March 15, 2011
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