Leonardo Da Vinci: On the Expanding Earth

Above: Franco Rosselli's 1508 map showing the island of Atlantis (Antarctica).

"OF THE EARTH'S INCREASE

INSTANCES AND DEDUCTIONS AS TO THE EARTH'S INCREASE

Take a vase, fill it full of pure earth, and set it up on a roof. You will see how immediately the green herbs will begin to shoot up, and how these, when fully grown, will cast their various seeds; and after the children have thus fallen at the feet of their parents, you will see the herbs having cast their seeds, becoming withered and falling back again to the earth, and within a short time becoming changed into the earth's substance and giving it increase; after this you will see the seeds springing up and passing through the same course, and so you will always see the successive generations after completing their natural course, by their death and corruption giving increase to the earth. And if you let ten years elapse and then measure the increase in the soil, you will be able to discover how much the earth in general has increased, and then by multiplying you will see how great has been the increase of the earth in the world during a thousand years. ... For do you not perceive how, among the high mountains, the walls of ancient and ruined cities are being covered over and concealed by the earth's increase? Nay, have you not seen how on the rocky summits of the mountains the live stone itself has in course of time swallowed up by its growth some column which it supported, and stripping it bare as with shears and grasping it tightly, has left the impress of its fluted form in the living rock?" -- Leonardo Da Vinci, polymath, Codex Atlanticus, Of the Earth's Increase, 265 r.a., ~1478-1519

Early Humans Migrated From Antarctica to South Africa

Kinver, M., Early Humans Began in Southern Africa, Study Suggests, BBC, Mar 2011

Modern humans may have originated from southern Africa, an extensive genetic study has suggested.

Data showed that hunter-gatherer populations in the region had the greatest degree of genetic diversity, which is an indicator of longevity.

It says that the region was probably the best location for the origin of modern humans, challenging the view that we came from eastern Africa.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Orpheus In Antarctica

"First then let us name Orpheus whom once Calliope bare, it is said, wedded to Thracian Oeagrus, near the Pimpleian height. Men say that he by the music of his songs charmed the stubborn rocks upon the mountains and the course of rivers. And the wild oak-trees to this day, tokens of that magic strain, that grow at Zone on the Thracian shore, stand in ordered ranks close together, the same which under the charm of his lyre he led down from Pieria. Such then was Orpheus whom Aeson's son [Jason] welcomed to share his toils, in obedience to the behest of Cheiron, Orpheus ruler of Bistonian Pieria." -- Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 3rd century B.C.

"He [Jason] spake, and mounted the ship first of all; and so the rest of the chiefs followed, and, sitting in order, seized the oars; and Argus loosed for them the hawsers from under the sea-beaten rock. Whereupon they mightily smote the water with their long oars, and in the evening by the injunctions of Orpheus they touched at the island of Electra, daughter of Atlas, in order that by gentle initiation they might learn the rites that may not be uttered, and so with greater safety sail over the chilling sea. Of these I will make no further mention; but I bid farewell to the island itself and the indwelling deities, to whom belong those mysteries, which it is not lawful for me to sing." -- Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 3rd century B.C.

Atlantis In The Avesta

"Upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, that shall bring the fierce, foul frost; upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, that shall make snow-flakes fall thick ...." -- Avesta, Vendidad, Fargard II, 1000 B.C.

"After the third time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of 'celestial gods and excellent mortals' that upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, and all life will perish. This is the old Mazdean symbolism for the 'flood,' and the coming cataclysm to Atlantis, which sweeps away every race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu and Noah, Yima makes a vara (an enclosure, an ark) under the God's direction, and brings thither the seed of every living creature, animals, and 'fire.'" -- Helena P. Blavatsky, theosopher, The Secret Doctrine, 1888

"Ahura Mazda then warns Yima of a series of terrible winters that are about to come to the earth, in which the tops of the highest mountains will be covered by snow." -- Elwood Worcester, author, The Book of Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge, 1901

"Ahura Mazda warns Yima, the first king of men, of the approach of a dire winter, which is to destroy every living creature by covering the land with a thick sheet of ice, and advises Yima to build a Vara, or an enclosure, to preserve the seeds of every kind of animal and plant." -- Bal G. Tilak, author, The Arctic Home in the Vedas, 1903

Abrupt Cooling of Antarctica 3,000 B.C.

"[The] Antarctic may hold the future of archaeology." -- Norman Hammond, archaeologist, February 2008

Stager, J.C., Mayeswski, P.A., Abrupt Early to Mid-Holocene Climatic Transition Registered at the Equator and the Poles, Science, Volume 276, Number 5320, Pages 1834-1836, Jun 1997

Paleoclimatic records from equatorial East Africa, Antarctica, and Greenland reveal that atmospheric circulation changed abruptly at the early to mid-Holocene transition to full postglacial conditions. A climatic reorganization occurred at all three sites between 8200 and 7800 years ago that lasted 200 years or less and appears to have been related to abrupt transitions in both marine and terrestrial records around the world.

Masson, V., et al., Holocene Climate Variability in Antarctica Based on 11 Ice-Core Isotopic Records, Quaternary Research, Volume 54, Issue 3, Pages 348-358, Nov 2000

All the records confirm the widespread Antarctic early Holocene optimum between 11,500 and 9000 yr; in the Ross Sea sector, a secondary optimum is identified between 7000 and 5000 yr, whereas all eastern Antarctic sites show a late optimum between 6000 and 3000 yr.

Hodell, E.A., et. al, Abrupt Cooling of Antarctic Surface Waters and Sea Ice Expansion in the South Atlantic Sector of the Southern Ocean at 5000 cal yr B.P., Quaternary Research, Volume 56, Issue 2, Pages 191-198, Sep 2001

Antarctic surface waters were warm and ice free between 10,000 and 5000 cal yr B.P., as judged from ice-rafted debris and microfossils in a piston core at 53°S in the South Atlantic. This evidence shows that about 5000 cal yr B.P., sea surface temperatures cooled, sea ice advanced, and the delivery of ice-rafted detritus (IRD) to the subantarctic South Atlantic increased abruptly. These changes mark the end of the Hypsithermal and onset of Neoglacial conditions. They coincide with an early Neoglacial advance of mountain glaciers in South America and New Zealand between 5400 and 4900 cal yr B.P., rapid middle Holocene climate changes inferred from the Taylor Dome Ice Core (Antarctica), cooling and increased IRD in the North Atlantic, and the end of the African humid period. The near synchrony and abruptness of all these climate changes suggest links among the tropics and both poles that involved nonlinear response to gradual changes in Northern Hemisphere insolation. Sea ice expansion in the Southern Ocean may have provided positive feedback that hastened the end of the Hypsithermal and African humid periods in the middle Holocene.

Hjort, C., et al., Holocene and Pre-Holocene Temporary Disappearance of the George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctic Penninsula, Antarctic Science, Volume 13, Number 3, Pages 296-301, 2001

Barnacle Bathylasma corolliforme shells sampled from ice shelf moraines at Two Step Cliffs on Alexander Island have been dated to c. 5750-6000 14C yr BP (c. 6550-6850 cal yr BP)

Pudsey C.J., and Evans, J., First Survey of Antarctic Sub–Ice Shelf Sediments Reveals Mid-Holocene Ice Shelf Retreat, Geology, Volume 29, Number 9, Pages 787-790, Sep 2001

The retreat of five small Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves in the late 20th century has been related to regional (possibly anthropogenic) climate warming. We use the record of ice- rafted debris (IRD) in cores to show that the Prince Gustav Channel ice shelf also retreated in mid-Holocene time. Early and late Holocene-age sediments contain IRD derived entirely from local ice drainage basins, which fed the section of ice shelf covering each site. Core- top and mid-Holocene (5–2 ka) sediments include a wider variety of rock types, recording the drift of far-traveled icebergs, which implies seasonally open water at the sites. The period when the Prince Gustav ice shelf was absent corresponds to regional climate warming deduced from other paleoenvironmental records. We infer that the recent decay cannot be viewed as an unequivocal indicator of anthropogenic climate perturbation.

Perkins, S., Antarctic Sediments Muddy Climate Debate, Science News, Sep 8th 2001

Ocean-floor sediments drilled from Antarctic regions recently covered by ice shelves suggest that those shelves were only 2,000 years old.

Gore, D.B. et al., Bunger Hills, East Antarctica: Ice free at the Last Glacial Maximum, Geology, Volume 29, Number 12, Pages 1103-1106, Dec 2001

Optically stimulated luminescence dating of glaciofluvial and glacial-lake shoreline sediments indicates that the Bunger Hills area, in coastal East Antarctica, was largely ice free by the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Deglaciation commenced as early as 30 ka, and the southern hills were completely exposed by 20 ka. The sediments do not record evidence of an LGM readvance. Previous reconstructions of LGM ice limits for the area are incompatible with this new evidence.

Bentley, M.J., et al., Early Holocene Retreat of the George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula, Geology, Volume 33, Number 3, Pages 173-176, Mar 2005

The recent collapse of several Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves has been linked to rapid regional atmospheric warming during the twentieth century. New high-resolution lake sediment records of Holocene ice-shelf behavior show that the George VI Ice Shelf was absent beginning ca. 9595 calibrated (cal.) yr B.P., but reformed by ca. 7945 cal. yr B.P. This retreat immediately followed a period of maximum Holocene warmth that is recorded in some ice cores and occurred at the same time as an influx of warmer ocean water onto the Antarctic Peninsula shelf. The absence of the ice shelf suggests that early Holocene ocean-atmosphere variability in the Antarctic Peninsula was greater than that measured in recent decades.

Bentley, M.J., and Hodgson, D.A., Antarctic Ice Sheet and Climate History Since the Last Glacial Maximum, Pages, Volume 17, Number 1, Jan 2009

Results showed that there are two warm periods recorded in most of the proxy records - a period of early Holocene warmth, and a Mid-Holocene Hypsithermal (Fig. 3)

Bentley, M.J., et al., Mechanisms of Holocene Palaeoenvironmental Change in the Antarctic Peninsula Region, The Holocene, Volume 19, Number 1, Pages 51-69, 2009

Two warm events are well recorded in the Holocene palaeoclimate record, namely the early Holocene warm period, and the `Mid Holocene Hypsithermal' (MHH)

Sime, L.C., et al., Evidence For Warmer Interglacials in East Antarctic Ice Cores, Nature, Number 462, Pages 342-345, Nov 19th 2009

We conclude that previous temperature estimates from interglacial climates are likely to be too low.

Schiermeier, Q., Antarctic Temperature Spike Surprises Researchers, NatureNews, Nov 18 2009

Sime adds that scientists still know too little about what happened in Antarctica during warm climates similar to ours. "We'd be better off if we did."

Warm Antarctica 11,000 B.C.

Science Daily: New Clue to How Last Ice Age Ended.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2010) — As the last ice age was ending, about 13,000 years ago, a final blast of cold hit Europe, and for a thousand years or more, it felt like the ice age had returned. But oddly, despite bitter cold winters in the north, Antarctica was heating up. For the two decades since ice core records revealed that Europe was cooling at the same time Antarctica was warming over this thousand-year period, scientists have looked for an explanation.

A new study in Nature brings them a step closer by establishing that New Zealand was also warming, indicating that the deep freeze up north, called the Younger Dryas for the white flower that grows near glaciers, bypassed much of the southern hemisphere.

"Glaciers in New Zealand receded dramatically at this time, suggesting that much of the southern hemisphere was warming with Antarctica," said study lead author, Michael Kaplan, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "Knowing that the Younger Dryas cooling in the northern hemisphere was not a global event brings us closer to understanding how Earth finally came out of the ice age."

The biting question I have is: who needs Lamont-Doherty Observatory when we have Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch, and Newton?

Revisiting Atlantis/Antarctica In Homer

"... on a sea-girt island, where the sea's navel is.
The island is forested, and on it a goddess makes her home,
the daughter of malign Atlas, he who knows the depths
of every sea and by himself holds the tall pillars
that hold apart heaven and earth." -- Homer, poet, Odyssey, Book I, 50-54, 8th century B.C.

"... to the island of Ogygia ...." -- Homer, Odyssey, Book I, 85, 8th century

"Instead, he'll [Odysseus] suffer miseries on a well-bound raft
and reach fertile Scheria on the twentieth day,
the land of the Phaeacians, who are close to the gods...." -- Homer, Odyssey, Book V, 33-35, 8th century B.C.

"Even an immortal, after coming there,
would gaze in admiration at what he saw and be delighted in his mind.
Runner Argeiphontes stood there and gazed in admiration." -- Homer, Odyssey, Book V, 73-74, 8th century B.C.

"Who'd run across so much briny water?
It's immense! Nor is there nearby any mortals' city...." -- Homer, Odyssey, Book V, 100-101, 8th century B.C.

"An island, Ogygia, lies far off on the sea.
Atlas' daughter lives there, crafty fair-haired Calypso,
a dread goddess. No one mixes with her,
neither gods nor mortal men.
But a divine one led this wretched one, me, to her hearth
alone, after Zeus impeded and split my swift ship
with white lightning in the midst of the wine-dark sea.
All the rest of my good comrades perished there,
but in my arms I grabbed the double-curved ship's keel
and for nine days I was carried. On the tenth dark night
the gods brought me to the island of Ogygia." -- Homer, Odyssey, Book VII, 244-254, 8th century B.C.

"'Nine days I was carried from there, and on the tenth night
the gods brought me to the island of Ogygia.'" -- Homer, Odyssey, Book XII, 447-448, 8th century B.C.

"After this at a distance of ten days' journey there is another hill of salt and spring of water, and men dwell round it. Near this salt hill is a mountain named Atlas, which is small in circuit and rounded on every side; and so exceedingly lofty is it said to be, that it is not possible to see its summits, for clouds never leave them either in the summer or in the winter. This the natives say is the pillar of the heaven. After this mountain these men got their name, for they are called Atlantians; and it is said that they neither eat anything that has life nor have any dreams." -- Herodotus, historian, History, Book IV, 440 B.C.

"For at one moment he [Polybius] quotes the words of the poet, 'Thence for nine whole days was I borne by baneful winds'; and at another moment he suppresses statements. For Homer says also: 'Now after the ship had left the river-stream of Oceanus'; and 'In the island of Ogygia, where is the navel of the sea,' going on to say that the daughter of Atlas lives there; and again, regarding the Phaeacians, 'Far apart we live in the wash of the waves, the farthermost men, and no other mortals are conversant with us.' Now all these incidents are clearly indicated as being placed in fancy in the Atlantic Ocean; but Polybius by suppressing them destroys what the poet states in expressing them. In so doing he is wrong ...." -- Strabo, geographer, The Geography, 7



"The great mainland, by which the great ocean is encircled, while not so far from the other islands, is about five thousand stades from Ogygia, the voyage being made by oar, for the main is slow to traverse and muddy as a result of the multitude of streams. The streams are discharged by the great land-mass and produce alluvial deposits, thus giving density and earthiness to the sea, which has been thought actually to be congealed. On the coast of the mainland Greeks dwell about a gulf which is not smaller than the Maeotis and the mouth of the Caspian sea. These people consider and call themselves continentals and the inhabitants of this land islanders because the sea flows around it on all sides; and they believe that with the peoples of Cronus there mingled at a later time those who arrived in the train of Heracles and were left behind by him and that these latter so to speak rekindled again to a strong, high flame the Hellenic spark there which was already being quenched and overcome by the tongue, the laws, and the manners of the barbarians. Therefore Heracles has the highest honours and Cronos the second. Now when at intervals of thirty years the star of Cronus, which we call 'Splendent' but they, our author said, call 'Night-watchman,' enters the sign of the Bull, they, having spent a long time in preparation for the sacrifice and the expedition, choose by lot and send forth a sufficient number of envoys in a correspondingly sufficient number of ships, putting aboard a large retinue and the provisions necessary for men who are going to cross so much sea by oar and live such a long time in a foreign land. Now when they have put to sea the several voyagers meet with various fortunes as one might expect; but those who survive the voyage first put in at the outlying islands, which are inhabited by Greeks, and see the sun pass out of sight for less than an hour over a period of thirty days, — and this is night, though it has a darkness that is slight and twilight glimmering from the west. There they spend ninety days regarded with honour and friendliness as holy men and so addressed, and then winds carry them across to their appointed goal. Nor do any others inhabit it but themselves and those who have been dispatched before them, for, while those who have served the god together for the stint of thirty years are allowed to sail off home, most of them usually choose to settle in the spot, some out of habit and others because without toil or trouble they have all things in abundance while they constantly employ their time in sacrifices and celebrations or with various discourse and philosophy, for the nature of the island is marvellous as is the softness of the circumambient air. Some when they intend to sail away are even hindered by the divinity which presents itself to them as to intimates and friends not in dreams only or by means of omens, but many also come upon the visions and the voices of spirits manifest. For Cronus himself sleeps confined in a deep cave of rock that shines like gold — the sleep that Zeus has contrived like a bond for him —, and birds flying in over the summit of the rock bring ambrosia to him, and all the island is suffused with fragrance scattered from the rock as from a fountain; and those spirits mentioned before tend and serve Cronus, having been his comrades what time he ruled as king over gods and men. Many things they do foretell of themselves, for they are oracular; but the prophecies that are greatest and of the greatest matters they come down and report as dreams of Cronus, for all that Zeus premeditates Cronus sees in his dreams and the titanic affections and motions of his soul make him rigidly tense until sleep restores his repose once more and the royal and divine element is all by itself, pure and unalloyed. Here then the stranger was conveyed, as he said, and while he served the god became at his leisure acquainted with astronomy, in which he made as much progress as one can by practising geometry, and with the rest of philosophy by dealing with so much of it as is possible for the natural philosopher. Since he had a strange desire and longing to observe the Great Island (for so, it seems, they call our part of the world...." -- Plutarch, historian, Concerning the Face Which Appears In The Orb of the Moon, Chapter 26, 1st century

"896 B.C. Ulysses found Calypso on the island of Ogygia [Antarctica] .... She was the daughter of Atlas, according to Homer. The ancients at length imagined that this island (which they called Atlantis after the name of Atlas) had been as large as all Europe, Africa and Asia, and sank into the sea." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, Revised History of Ancient Kingdoms, 1727

The Atlantis Sea In Herodotus

Herodotus, History, Book I, 203, 440 B.C.

Now the Caspian Sea is apart by itself, not having connection with the other Sea: for all that Sea which the Hellenes navigate, and the Sea beyond the Pillars, which is called Atlantis, and the Erythraian Sea are in fact all one ....

Plato, Critias, 360 B.C.

I have before remarked in speaking of the allotments of the gods, that they distributed the whole earth into portions differing in extent, and made for themselves temples and instituted sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe. Looking towards the sea, but in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side.

In this mountain there dwelt one of the earth born primeval men of that country, whose name was Evenor, and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an only daughter who was called Cleito. The maiden had already reached womanhood, when her father and mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her and had intercourse with her, and breaking the ground, inclosed the hill in which she dwelt all round, making alternate zones of sea and land larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe, each having its circumference equidistant every way from the centre, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. He himself, being a god, found no difficulty in making special arrangements for the centre island, bringing up two springs of water from beneath the earth, one of warm water and the other of cold, and making every variety of food to spring up abundantly from the soil. He also begat and brought up five pairs of twin male children; and 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 the first king, he named Atlas, and after him the whole island and the ocean were called Atlantic.

Plato, Timaeus, 360 B.C.

This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent.

Atlantic Ocean, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1929, 1956, 1963, 1970

ATLANTIC OCEAN, the name given to the vast stretch of sea dividing the continents of Europe and Africa from the new world. The term is supposedly derived from Atlantis, presumed to be a submerged continent below the present ocean.

Ice-Free Antarctica 9,600 B.C.

"Fundamentally, in counting any annual marker, we must ask whether it is absolutely unequivocal, or whether nonannual events could mimic or obscure a year. For the visible strata (and, we believe, for any other annual indicator at accumulation rates representative of central Greenland), it is almost certain that variability exists at the subseasonal or storm level, at the annual level, and for various longer periodicities (2-year, sunspot, etc.). We certainly must entertain the possibility of misidentifying the deposit of a large storm or a snow dune as an entire year or missing a weak indication of a summer and thus picking a 2-year interval as 1 year." -- Alley, R.B. et al., Visual-Stratigraphic Dating of the GISP2 Ice Core: Basis, Reproducibility, and Application, Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 102, Number C12, Pages 26, 367–26, 381, 1997.

"First glance intuition is often very helpful in coming up with a good hypothesis to explain a given phenomenon, such as the hundreds of thousands of layers of ice found in places like Greenland and Antarctica. It seems down right intuitive that each layer found in these ice sheets should represent an annual cycle. After all, this seems to fit the uniformitarian paradigm so well. However, a closer inspection of the data seems to favor a much more recent and catastrophic model of ice sheet formation. Violent weather disturbances with large storms, a sudden cold snap, and high precipitation rates could very reasonably give rise to all the layers, dust bands, and isotope variations etc. that we find in the various ice sheets today." -- Sean D. Pitman, doctor, December 2006

"One problem with using ice cores or tree rings or ocean floor sediments and so on as a way to date the Earth is that one absolutely has to use certain assumptions in the dating method that cannot be tested and proven. We don't have historical records of continual and documented ice core samples going back for thousands of years, so the results need to be interpreted within the light of the assumptions that are used in the process. This is why vast differences in the ages represented in ice cores are suggested by those within the long-ages scientific community and how YEC scientists find the ice cores make sense from their perspective as well." -- Radaractive, blogger, December 2008

New Evidence Proves Science Wrong

"Now about the sphere magnet. If you have a strong magnet you can change the poles in the sphere in any side you want or take the poles out so the sphere will not be a magnet any more. From this you can see that the metal is not the real magnet. The real magnet is the substance that is circulating in the metal. Each particle in the substance is an individual magnet by itself, and both North and South Pole individual magnets. They are so small that they can pass through anything. In fact, they can pass through metal easier than through the air. They are in constant motion, they are running one kind of magnet against the other kind, and if guided in the right channels they possess perpetual power. The North and South Pole magnets are cosmic force. They hold together this earth and everything in it." -- Edward Leedskalnin, stone mason, 1945

New Scientist: Second super-fast flip of Earth's poles found.

SOME 16 million years ago, north became south in a matter of years. Such fast flips are impossible, according to models of the Earth's core, but this is now the second time that evidence has been found.

The magnetic poles swap every 300,000 years, a process that normally takes up to 5000 years. In 1995 an ancient lava flow with an unusual magnetic pattern was discovered in Oregon. It suggested that the field at the time was moving by 6 degrees a day - at least 10,000 times faster than usual. "Not many people believed it," says Scott Bogue of Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Now Bogue and his colleague Jonathan Glen of the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, say they have found a second example in Nevada. The lava rock suggests that in one year, Earth's magnetic field shifted by 53 degrees (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2010GL044286). At that rate, a full flip would take less than four years, but there could be another interpretation. "It may have been a burst of rapid acceleration that punctuated the steady movement of the field," says Bogue.

Peter Olson of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, remains sceptical and points out that the effects could have been local rather than global.

Earth is overdue for a reversal, and rapid shifts would cause widespread chaos - for navigation and migratory birds for instance.

Odysseus In Antarctica

"But Odysseus led the high-hearted men of Kephallenia,
those who held Ithaka and leaf-trembling Neriton,
those who dwelt about Krokyleia and rigged Aigilips,
those who held Zakynthos and those who dwelt about Samos,
those who held the mainland and the places next to the crossing.
All these men were led by Odysseus, like Zeus in counsel.
Following with him were twelve ships with bows red painted." -- Homer, poet, The Iliad, Book II: 631-637, ~ 8th century B.C.

"Next again the old man [Priam] asked her [Helen], seeing Odysseus:
'Tell me of this one also, dear child; what man can he be,
shorter in truth by a head than Atreus' son Agamemnon,
but broader, it would seem, in the chest and across the shoulders.
Now as his armour lies piled on the prospering earth, still he
ranges, like some ram, through the marshalled ranks of the fighters.
Truly, to some deep-fleeced ram would I liken him
who makes his way through the great mass of the shining sheep-flocks.'
Helen, the daughter descended of Zeus, spoke then in answer:
'This one is Laertes' son, resourceful Odysseus,
who grew up in the country, rough though it be, of Ithaka,
to know every manner of shiftiness and crafty counsels.'
In his turn Antenor of the good counsel answered her:
'Surely this word you have spoken, my lady, can be no falsehood.
Once in the days before now brilliant Odysseus came here
with warlike Menelaos, and their embassy was for your sake.
To both of these I gave in my halls kind entertainment
and I learned the natural way of both, and their close counsels.
Now when these were set before the Trojans assembled
and stood up, Menelaos was bigger by his broad shoulders
but Odysseus was the more lordly when both were seated.
Now before all when both of them spun their speech and their counsels,
Menelaos indeed spoke rapidly, in few words
but exceedingly lucid, since he was no long speaker
one who wasted his words though he was only a young man.
But when that other drove to his feet, resourceful Odysseus,
he would just stand and stare down, eyes fixed on the ground beneath him,
nor would he gesture with the staff backward and forward, but hold it
clutched hard in front of him, like any man who knows nothing.
Yes, you would call him a sullen man, and a fool likewise.
But when he let the great voice go from his chest, and the words came
drifting down like the winter snows, then no other mortal
man beside could stand up against Odysseus. Then we
wondered less beholding Odysseus' outward appearance.'"-- Homer, poet, The Iliad, Book III: 191-224, ~ 8th century B.C.



Newton, I., Revised History of Ancient Kingdoms: A Complete Chronology, 1727

896 B.C. Ulysses found Calypso on the island of Ogygia [Antarctica] .... She was the daughter of Atlas, according to Homer. The ancients at length imagined that this island (which they called Atlantis after the name of Atlas) had been as large as all Europe, Africa and Asia, and sank into the sea.

"Odysseus' island is no longer a fantasy." -- Robert Bittlestone, consultant, Odysseus Unbound, 2005