Open Veils · Answer
The Richat Structure
The geological consensus is well-established, but alternative researchers argue the structure's geometry, elevation, dimensions, and surrounding sedimentology are too precise to dismiss as coincidence with Plato's Atlantis description. The Richat sits at the edge of what was once a far wetter Sahara, and its Acheulean tool concentrations hint at dense, long-duration human occupation. The Atlantis hypothesis is not fringe mythology — it draws on measurable data points that mainstream geology has never fully addressed.
Evidence
- Bright Insight (Jimmy Corsetti) produced widely circulated analysis noting that the Richat sits at nearly the same latitude Plato assigned to Atlantis, directly facing the Atlantic across what was then a more navigable coastline.
- The recent NASA Earth Observatory feature (April 2026) and ESA imagery (November 2025) reconfirm the igneous-dome model without engaging the Atlantis question at all — a silence alternative researchers read as telling.
- Paul LaViolette's galactic superwave model and Randall Carlson's Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis both place a catastrophic civilisation reset around 10,800–9,600 BCE — exactly the date Plato gave for Atlantis's submergence.
- Graham Hancock, in 'America Before' and subsequent interviews, has highlighted that the Sahara was substantially wetter during the Younger Dryas period and immediately after, making a habitable, even maritime, civilisation in this region entirely plausible before roughly 10,000 BCE.
- He also flags the rectangular plain Plato describes to the north of Atlantis as matching the geography of the Adrar Plateau region.