Scientists Discover Lost World

An ancient landscape long ago submerged beneath the North Atlantic Ocean has been discovered by scientists.

Researchers found the 56million-year-old lost terrain, which they have likened to the mythical lost city of Atlantis, by analyzing data collected for oil companies using an advanced echo-sounding technique.

The 1.2mile-deep landscape is located in the North Atlantic west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands and has peaks that once belonged to mountains and eight major rivers.

It would once have risen up to 0.6miles above sea level and probably joined up with what is now Scotland, and may even have stretched as far as Norway, the scientists said.

Researcher Nicky White, from University of Cambridge, said: 'It looks for all the world like a map of a bit of a country onshore. 'It is like an ancient fossil landscape preserved 1.2miles beneath the seabed.'

The discovery came from data gathered by a seismic contracting company. A hi-tech echo-sounding technique was deployed that involved releasing high-pressured air underwater - this produced sound waves that traveled through sediment on the ocean floor. An echo would bounce back each time these waves happened upon a change in the terrain through which they were traveling.