A team of researchers unearthed an ancient underwater site, possibly the remains of a long-lost city.

Archaeologists have dive down the shores of Greece's Zakynthos island and found out smooth floors and what looked to be circular column base that resembles the remains of an ancient civilization. However, the underwater structures once thought to be remnants of an ancient civilization were actually created by nature, a world of microbes.

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They have noted that the structures contain a mineral called dolomite, calcium by product produced by microbes that feed off methane. When bacteria huddle around a reliable source of the gas, their calcium excrement can react with methane to produce the cement-like substance. For microbes that live in sediment, that methane gas becomes fuel. As they oxidize the gas, the sediment itself changes composition, creating a cement-like compound – a natural process called concretion.

“The site was discovered by snorkelers and first thought to be an ancient city port, lost to the sea. There were what superficially looked like circular column bases, and paved floors. But mysteriously no other signs of life – such as pottery,” lead author Julian Andrews, a professor of environmental science at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, says in a press release.

Andrews and University of Athens professor Michael Stamatakis discovered that microbes found in the sediment leverage the carbon content of methane as fuel, which then alters the sediment’s chemistry to create concretion, a form of natural cement that gets shaped by passing currents.

Their conclusion is that these ‘donuts’ are just natural geological phenomenon likely resulting from the natural gases found near the sea’s floor. The structures are probably close to a sub-surface fault which has not fully ruptured the surface of the sea bed.

Researchers said that the columns and the paved floors that led to the idea of the lost city under sea and in fact natural geographical formations formed during the Pliocene era. On studying the composition of the stones found in the region, it was found that the stones majorly compromised of hydrocarbons that were constantly coming out of the sea floor in the region.

Details of the study have been published in the Marine and Petroleum Geology journal.

Tagsunderwater greek city, lost city, Lost underwatyer city, ancient underwater Greek ruins