A lost continent in a temperate Arctic

Abstract

Thoughts of Plato's myth of the lost continent Atlantis are stimulated by new evidence from deep sea cores through a submerged microcontinent in the northernmost North Atlantic. Dark conifer forests with low-lying ferns grew there in quiet, windless, low-energy regimes through the Oligocene and Miocene and stayed much the same for millions of years, from 33 to 10 Ma, at palaeolatitudes of some 8° to 10° beyond the Arctic Circle. The weather was unlike any today, with Arctic light regimes in a cool temperate climate. The biosystem was highly productive, despite the low energy of this consistently mysterious and gloomy place.