Sunday, September 13, 2015

Ancient ruins in the deep

Heiligenschein (German for 'holy light'), that halo of light around radiating out from my head's shadow

Looking out towards the causeway 
Been awhile since I posted anything here. I went canoeing a couple weeks ago and spotted a bizarre underwater formation just off the cliffs of the northwest edge of Marble Island in Colchester. It was undoubtedly construct by someone - a square shape with rounded edges about 12' in diameter, with a break in the rocks - an opening? - facing out from shore west towards the bay. It was constructed of dolostone boulders each about the size of a basketball.
A closer look at the object
The water level is already near its annual low (declines throughout summer into the fall, then begins to climb as leaves fall and evapotranspiration shuts down. Of course trends are also contingent on lake freezing over, precipitation, and warm winter days) and even with the lake at record low levels, the person would have had to have been about 7 feet under water. An impressive feat. The question of why they built it is another matter. Not really sure, it's just below and awesome rock that stands above the water by quite a bit. There were a few fishing hooks/line around on the shore so maybe this was built as bait to lure fish in? Maybe just for fun? Maybe a solar sculpture? Not really sure. It's totally inaccessible other than to a couple of private landowners and boats.
LAKE DATA FROM 2012

LAKE DATA FROM 2013

Lake data from 2014