With nine million square kilometers of surface, covering the entire northern strip of the African continent, the Sahara desert is the largest in the world. And it has an unusual structure inside: the Richat structure, popularly known as the Eye of the Sahara.
Why is it associated with the lost city of Atlantis?
This mythical island that appears in the texts of the famous Greek philosopher Plato, is described as an immeasurable military power that existed thousands of years before the Athenian legislator Solon existed, from whom, according to the philosopher, the source of the story starts.
This structure has a diameter of almost 50 kilometers and, seen from space, it looks like a huge porthole. It was precisely discovered on a space mission in 1965. Taking into account Plato’s writings on the subject, it is not uncommon for many to think that this “eye” is from another world and that it could be related to the end of millions of Atlanteans. One of the reasons this Eye remained undiscovered for so long is that it is located in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.
While Plato’s descriptions of Atlantis are epic and jaw-dropping, many believe that he barely scratched the surface. Plato described Atlantis as a massive formation of concentric circles, alternating between land and water, similar to how we can see the “eye of the Sahara” today. It would have been a rich and utopian civilization that laid the foundations of the Athenian democratic model, being a society rich in gold, silver, copper and other precious metals and stones.
Atlantis, their leader, would have been a leader in academia, architecture, agriculture, technology, diversity, and spiritual empowerment, where their navy and military forces were unmatched, and the Atlantean kings ruled with extreme authority.
The story behind the mysterious structure
Regarding the structure, it was originally thought to have been a crater, but investigations carried out in the 1950s and 1960s ruled out this possibility through the impact of an asteroid and yes to a more earthly cause such as volcanic activity. Scientists then settled on the theory that it was a 100-million-year-old molten rock dome, eroded and shaped by wind and water.
The hypothesis of his relationship with Atlantis also appeared on the scene. But the reality is that there is a great lack of evidence that supports everything that is related to this mythical civilization. Plato’s lost city of Atlantis will remain undiscovered (probably because it never really existed). And regardless of the Platonian explanation for this interesting crater-like object in the desert, it still stands out because of its shape.
What is it really?
Over the years and research, scientists elucidated that the Richat structure is nothing more than a section of an anticline dome eroded over millions of years. It was not formed at a time when humans existed, and the earliest evidence of humans in the area does not align with the supposed age of the Atlanteans. It is a very interesting geological feature, carved out over hundreds of millions of years. It consists of rocks from the Proterozoic in the center to Ordovician on the outside, with carbonates (limestones and dolomites) with siliceous breccias from the Cretaceous caused by dissolution and karst collapse, among other things.
