"the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way" ~Plato

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Shoal of Mud

"But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods;

and in a single day and night of misfortune ...

the island of Atlantis ... disappeared in the depths of the sea.

For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable,

because there is a shoal of mud in the way;

and this was caused by the subsidence of the island."

~ Plato

The Island of Atlantis was not surrounded by a sea. It was surrounded by a ditch, receiving water from a huge water drainage area, beyond which stretched a boundless continent. Therefore when the Island of Atlantis sank, it created a new sea which we now call the Sea of Azov. Kerch Strait connects the Sea of Azov, the sea into which the island/plain of Atlantis sank, and the Black Sea, which Solon gave the name the Atlantic, in honor of the first-born son of Atlantis, whom Solon named Atlas.

Plato's Dialogues reveal that the entrance to the sea where the Island of Atlantis sank was blocked by shoals of mud. An aged Egyptian priest told Solon that it was impossible to sail into the sea where the island/plain of Atlantis sank because "there is a shoal of mud in the way." This means that the shoal of mud was still in existence 9,000 years after Atlantis sank. Kerch Strait exactly matches the Egyptian priest's description of the entrance to the sea where the Island of Atlantis once existed.

The ocean level rise, that occurred after the Black Sea became connected to the world oceans, has submerged most of the shoal of mud. The 1.5 kilometer long Tuzla island remains above the water and still partially blocks the strait.

The City of Atlantis had a five mile long channel, which connected Atlantis City to the sea. This ancient channel to the sea was discovered submerged in Kerch Strait by Ryan and Pitman in 1998, while they were searching for evidence of a great flood in the Black Sea, which they call Noah's Flood.

The Atlantis Motherland project has presented scientific evidence, in their Great Atlantis Flood theory, that the Sea of Azov was formerly a fertile plain that sank by devastating earthquakes and became a sea, circa 9,600 BC, just as reported in Plato's Dialogues. The earthquakes generated massive tidal waves in the Black Sea which swept in over the City of Atlantis. The churning backlash of the tidal waves created the shoals of mud and deposited debris from Atlantis City along the northern shores of the peninsulas. The shoals of mud created "an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean."

Today, major portions of Kerch Strait are still blocked by shoals of mud. Regular dredging is required to keep the vital modern shipping routes open between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. In the Kerch Strait 21,000,000 m3 of soil were dredged and dumped in the time period from 1991 to 1997. Kerch Strait separates the Crimean Kerch peninsula in the west from the Taman peninsula in the east. The strait is 4.5 to 15 km (3-11 mi) wide and up to 18 meters deep. The most important harbor is the city of Kerch, the former site of the City of Atlantis.

 

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DOLPHIN ALERT: Bottlenose dolphins are common in the Kerch Strait (Birkun and Krivokhizhin 1998). The live-capture of bottlenose dolphins for Russian and Ukrainian oceanaria, and for export, is believed to be adding to the pressure on local dolphin communities in the Black Sea (A. Birkun, pers. comm.). In addition, unknown numbers are removed from the wild each year by countries bordering the Black Sea for military purposes, to replace animals that die in display facilities, and to supply the captive dolphins used in human therapy programs. Fortunately Industrial dolphin killing has been prohibited in Ukraine since 1966. (Alexei Birkun)

Habitat deterioration and disturbance of Black Sea bottlenose dolphins can be induced by the dumping of bottom sediments removed due to the deepening of navigation canals and reconstruction of ports. The dredging and dumping activity is provoking the disturbance of bottlenose dolphin herds. The Kerch Strait shipping junction with adjacent areas in the Black and Azov Seas could be denoted as potential hot spots affecting the distribution and migrations of bottlenose dolphins. (Alexei Birkun, et al.)