Britain's own underwater "Atlantis" could be revealed for first time.

Underwater city could be revealed



Britain's own underwater "Atlantis" could be revealed for the first time with hi-tech underwater cameras.

* * *

Marine archaeologist Stuart Bacon and Professor David Sear, of the University of Southampton, will explore the lost city of Dunwich, off the Suffolk coast. Dunwich gradually disappeared into the sea because of coastal erosion.

"It's about the application of new technology to investigate Britain's Atlantis, then to give this information to the public," Professor Sear said.

..snip..


The expedition will use the latest sonar, underwater camera and scanning equipment to build up a picture of the ancient sunken city, that lies between 10ft (3m) and 50ft (15m) down.

Dunwich was the capital of East Anglia 1,500 years ago.

Its decline began in 1286 when a sea surge hit the East Anglian coast and it was eventually reduced through coastal erosion to the village it is today....cont'd

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7187239.stm

********************************************************

Wikepedia -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunwich

:kick:

Pardon me if I get the details a little off, but it was something like a decade ago that I read this.

Basically, Dunwich was a seaside town which was protected by a long offshore sandbar which formed a harbor. This natural sandbar was created by silt-bearing water flowing out of the two rivers. The original coastline was a low marshy plain rebuilt by periodic flooding in the winter.

By 1000 years ago, according to the theory, humans had dramatically altered the environment in that area. Water from the rivers was diverted for agriculture, the marshes had been drained for farmland, and the surrounding forests which had once retained water in their soil and allowed year round water flows had been cleared. The rivers changed from watercourses which maintained a high flow year round, to watercourses that simply surged when it rained and didn't flow much at all the rest of the year (as they are today). The drained ground began to subside, and the lack of marshlands reduced the amount of silt flowing out of the rivers.

The lack of supporting water flow and silt caused the natural sandbar to begin eroding, culminating with one big storm that washed much of it away. Without the spit to protect the shoreline, the ocean rapidly began chewing up the subsiding dry marshlands and nearly two miles of shoreline vanished beneath the sea...as did the city which once occupied that spot.

It's a good lesson and makes the point well that our lack of environmental awareness isn't something that just popped up in the 18th century...mankind has been mucking up the planet for millennia.