An underwater, lost Greek city was found hidden off the island of Zakynthos, as divers spotted some structures on the sea floor resembling courtyards, paved floor and colonnades, which eerily resembled a lost ancient civilization.

However in this new study, these remains were confirmed to be only underwater geological formations that emerged from rocks, due to methane seeping from the seabed, according to scientists from University of East Anglia, U.K. and University of Athens in Greece.

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In this new study, these structures were determined to have formed some 5 million years ago during the Pliocene era, which also solves the mystery why the divers did not recover any other artifacts indicating a lost civilization, some two to five meters underwater, such as pottery.

Scientists then carried out chemical and mineralogical tests and concluded that this "ancient Greek city" is apparently not what it appeared to be but was just produced from the Earth's natural gas leaks. This natural event usually occurs in a span of hundreds of thousands of years in the deep depths of the ocean.

According to lead author of the study, Julian Andrews from the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Science, this disk and doughnut like morphology could appear like the base of circular columns however, this is typical of a mineralization process as hydrocarbon continue to seep through the seafloor from paleo times to modern day.

Scientists say that these doughnut shaped formations that easily resemble columns or courtyards are most probably caused by a subsurface fault that has not yet fully ruptured from the surface of the seabed, where this created a crack causing gases such as methane to escape from under the seabed.

Researchers also say that this carbon detected in this methane became a source of food for microbes, creating a process known as concretion. Microbes then promoted oxidation that transformed the sediment into dolomite, which is a natural form of cement, which has been exposed on the seabed from erosion.

This new study is published in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology.

Tagsunderwater greek city, lost underwater ancient greek city, geological formations, ancient greek city