

Mysterious Stone Structure Discovered Beneath Sea of Galilee - fourmii
http://www.livescience.com/28567-ancient-structure-under-sea-of-galilee.html

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BurritoAlPastor
The ancient remains of a great and enormous basalt structure, hmm? Now where
have I heard of that before... Ah, yes!

"And before the day was done Carter saw that the steersman could have no other
goal than the Basalt Pillars of the West, beyond which simple folk say
splendid Cathuria lies, but which wise dreamers well know are the gates of a
monstrous cataract wherein the oceans of earth’s dreamland drop wholly to
abysmal nothingness and shoot through the empty spaces toward other worlds and
other stars and the awful voids outside the ordered universe where the daemon-
sultan Azathoth gnaws hungrily in chaos amid pounding and piping and the
hellish dancing of the Other Gods, blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and mindless,
with their soul and messenger Nyarlathotep." \- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Dream-
Quest of Unknown Kadath" (and alluding to his earlier "The White Ship")

Perhaps we should seek the other Basalt Pillar of the West in the Dead Sea.

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Jun8
This guy's predictions have an eerie way of coming up: the unexplained Bloop
sound (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop>) recorded near the Pacific pole of
inaccessibility, very near where Lovecraft has R'lyeh, where Ctulhu sleeps;
the recent discovery of mountains, hitherto unknown under hundreds of meters
of Antarctic ice, just as described in _The Mountains of Madness_
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamburtsev_Mountain_Range>, no credit is given
on the Wikipedia page to him), and now this.

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ChuckMcM
Sometimes, you need to look for the simple answers not the "exotic" ones. This
pile of rocks was created by ships, merchant ships to be specific. You see
back in the day you needed a ship with a lot of buoyancy to carry a lot of
cargo, more cargo, more money. But unlike today's ships which use computers to
pump on or pump out water as needed, your typical merchant 4000 years ago
would get a big rock on the 'empty' run (when they were just returning with
profits to get more trade goods) and they would dump the rock overboard just
before port so they could fill up on oils or skins or other trinkets.

Not very exciting I know. Sorry about that.

[1] ballast pile as result of wreck --
<http://www.marinearcheology.org/Shooner.htm>

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ChuckMcM
Awesome discussion. The reasoning on my assertion is as follows:

The description of the pile of rocks, it matches the description of ballast
piles outside of ports on the Mediterranean and larger inland seas.

Ship technology from the time [1] tended to flat bottomed and top heavy boats.

Ships in general, but merchant ships in particular, use ballast to adjust
their buoyancy so that they sail per their design. In the case of merchant
ships ballast is always something of low value and easily removed.

When adjusting ballast without pumps, solid ballast is easier to load on and
off than either liquid ballast or sand ballast (which would require
shovelling).

In terms of value to pound of ballast delivered, random basaltic rocks achieve
excellent efficiencies.

It's certainly possible that this is something else entirely. I don't think
we'll know until they do further research, until then it would be fun to hear
other's reasoning on what they think this "structure" represents.

[1] <http://www.spirasolaris.ca/egyptianship.html>

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abduhl
A 1 meter longest dimension boulder would probably weigh well over 500 pounds
(conservatively). This size stone is not something you would use as ballast.

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ChuckMcM
Hmm, that is a fair point. One cubic meter of basaltic rock is closer to 3
tons. There is a point where a rock is too big to be usefully used as ballast.

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colemorrison
I couldn't tell if the pictures and diagrams were about a stone structure or a
2013 Dodge Avenger, Dart, or Challenger. I swear web publishers sometimes pick
the worst things to slap ads on...

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moobirubi
Jesus!

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donretag
No, around 2000 years (third millennium B.C) before him. ;)

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acqq
It's not written how deep the rocks are, or how much watter were above them in
Jesus' time, but just imagine not much and that he knew where they were --
then the scenes where he gets out of the boat to walk on the watter get a very
obvious explanation.

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comicjk
Yes, surely the fishermen who were sailing it would be ignorant of shallow
rocks right next to the boat. It's not like they would have to avoid hitting
them.

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sukuriant
Professional fishermen, don't forget. This was their livelihood, so they were
very likely good at it and knew the waters.

(I caught the sarcasm and was adding to your actual stance, in case I failed
to relay that :) )

