We've Finally Found The Atlanteans! No, Not Those Ones – They're Volcanoes

Good news, conspiracy theorists : Atlanteans are real after all. There’s just one catch: they’re actually not a heroic race of people from an ancient and mythical land lost to Poseidon’s wrath . Turns out, they’re volcanoes.

Discovered in the oceans north of the Canary Islands, the three underwater volcanoes have been named “Los Atlantes” – Spanish for “the Atlanteans” – by the team who found them. The title isn’t random: it’s a reference to the “Atlantis” research project, launched in late June by institutions across Spain and Portugal to investigate features of the local marine environment, during which the trio was accidentally discovered.

That’s not the only thing the volcanoes have in common with the myth. While the discovery of hitherto unknown geological features is always pretty cool, Los Atlantes are far more than just a zit on the ocean bed: sitting as they do in the Canaries – a Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa, comprising the islands of Lanzarote, Tenerife, La Palma, and so on – they speak to a history millions of years in the making.

“They were islands in the past and they have sunk,” explained geologist Luis Somoza, coordinator of the Atlantis project, in a translated statement . “They are still sinking, as the legend of Atlantis tells us.”

Indeed, the geological story of the Canary Islands is much more tempestuous and mysterious than the region’s reputation as a vacation spot would suggest. Located firmly inside the African continental shelf, the archipelago is nevertheless a hotbed of volcanic activity: all seven islands currently making up the region began as submarine volcanoes, built through millions of years of eruptions into the landmasses we know today.

Evidently, however, not all the islands were so lucky. Los Atlantes haven’t been above the waves since the Eocene age some 56 to  34 million years ago – with an honorable mention for a few of the inactive volcanoes during the last ice age, when sea levels were lower and they could poke their calderas out into the air for a while. Now, though, these three mounts are at least 60 meters (200 feet) below the surface, home to marine microorganisms and crucial elements.

Which is a shame, really – because Los Atlantes sounds just as idyllic as their sisters. The team has "been able to verify that they still maintain their beaches,” Somoza explained in the statement; the team also identified “cliffs and sand dunes at the flat summit of the seamount,” he told Live Science . During the last ice age, he said, “these islands could […] be used for inhabiting wildlife.”

“This could be the origin of the Atlantis legend,” Somoza suggested.