Building on Dr. James Maxlows' ideas for expansion tectonics , I had the idea yesterday that the position of Iceland, surrounded by continental shelf, must mean that it was a continental island, formed from continental crust that dates back to the archaic earth (Pangea, a globe. )

That, Google revealed, was then proven in 2015, Continental crust beneath southeast Iceland. PNAS 2015

Iceland as a continent, and Platos' Atlantis

The plume origin for Iceland, shattered by the PNAS study, means that Iceland is not formed by a rift zone, rather, it separates two rift zones, one to the south (the midatlantic rift) and one to the north.

Building on that, I made the hypothesis that, were the forces of expansion in the oceanic crust within the rift zones that are separated by Iceland, to exceed the forces that hold together the continental shelf of Greenland, Iceland, and Europe, could then the rift zone "break through" Iceland, and "swallow" it into the newly formed oceanic crust?

That then relates to Platos' description of Atlantis in Timaeus, as a continental island west of the Strait of Gibraltar, that was "swallowed" into the ocean in a day and a night of earthquakes and floods.

Platos description, and maps from throughout history that illustrate his description, like this one from the 19th century, position Atlantis where the Azores are today.

The scars in the oceanic crust, surrounding the Azore islands - if Iceland is of continental origin, and separates two rift zones, could there have been a continental island where the Azores are today, which separated a rift zone to the south and to the north, and that was "torn apart" in an expansion phase, where the rift zones tore through the continental island itself?

Within universal mythology, there is a recorded memory of a continent, being "swallowed" by the sea, in a event that lasted a day and a night, where there were earthquakes and great floods.

The end of the quaternary ice age, shifting distribution of weight on earth, and a correction by expansion

As the ice sheets that covered large parts of the globe melted away, at the end of the quaternary ice age, the distribution of weight on earth would have shifted.

At some point, some 12000 years ago, as the weight of the ice had dispersed across the oceans and across the earth, there could have been a event of expansion that occurred as a correction, where the forces of the expansion could have exceeded the forces that held together the America, Atlantis, Eurafrican continents and continental shelf. During that event, the rift zone south of Atlantis, and the rift zone north of Atlantis, could have broken through the continental island itself, "swallowing" it into the oceanic crust.

This single event some 12,000 years ago, would then have been a "day and a night with great earthquakes and flooding", widening the atlantic ocean as the Atlantis continent was swallowed into the newly formed rift zone, melting into the oceanic crust, resulting from the end of the last ice age and of the quaternary glaciation.