It appears that the ‘lost city’ off the coast of Zakynthos is not a long-forgotten ancient civilization after all. The underwater colonnades and structures first reported in 2013 have now been revealed to be the result of a natural gas leak, a geological phenomenon that took place up to five million years ago in the Pliocene era.
The waters where the ‘lost city’ was found are quite shallow, so this type of natural phenomenon was not initially considered as it usually occurs at greater depths. However, scientists from the University of East Anglia, the University of Athens and the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of Greece all collaborated to make a further study of the site.
Today the study’s findings were released stating that all of those circular ‘column bases’ and ‘courtyard floors’ were actually structures formed by the release of methane from cracks in the sea floor.
Professor Julian Andrews who was the lead author of the study that was published in the journal Marine Petroleum Geology was intrigued by the study’s findings.
“The disk and doughnut morphology, which looked a bit like circular column bases, is typical of mineralization at hydrocarbon seeps…This kind of phenomenon is quite rare in shallow waters,” Andrews commented.
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