Description
Today, the cave can be accessed through a 175 m (574 ft) long tunnel, the entrance of which is located 37 m (121 ft) below the surface of the sea, because of changes in sea level since the time the cave was inhabited. The shore of the Mediterranean sea at the time the cave was occupied was then several km away and many metres below the cave mouth. Sea level was lower because at that time there was an ice age and large volumes of water were retained in enormous icecaps on land, making the level of the sea 110 to 120 m (360 to 390 ft) lower than today, affecting Mean Sea Level as calculated for approximately 20,000 years ago during the peak of the (last major glaciation).
Read more about this topic: Cosquer Cave
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)