They Drilled Seventeen Blocks. The Stone Formed Where It Lies.
The blocks are rectangular, they run in an arc, and they look laid. Seventeen cores were drilled and X-rayed. The sand layers inside every one of them dip the same way — seaward, as a beach lays down.
A months-long reporting project. Documents cited below are held in The Vault and available to readers.
NORTH BIMINI, Bahamas — It looks laid.
That is the honest first sentence and this newspaper's correspondent will not pretend otherwise, having swum over it twice. Rectangular blocks, roughly matched in size, running in a long shallow arc in four metres of water.
Everybody who sees it thinks the same thing. The question is how you would tell.
Outsides are ambiguous
For fifty years the argument here has been conducted by people looking at the outside of the blocks.
That will never settle it, because natural jointing produces rectangles and so do masons. A right angle is not a signature.
Insides are not
In 1977 a geologist drilled seventeen cores and had them X-rayed.
The cores were oriented, which is the entire point of this story: each one was marked before it came out, so that afterwards you know which way was north.
Inside the rock is cross-bedding — fine layers of sand laid at an angle, the way sand lies on the face of a beach.
In all seventeen, the layers lean the same way. Seaward, toward deep water.
Why that is the answer
A stone that formed where it lies keeps the slope of the beach that made it.
A stone that was cut, carried and set down keeps whatever slope the person carrying it happened to give it. Some would lean one way, some another, some would end up upside down. You would get a scatter.
Seventeen agreeing is not a scatter. It is a beach.
What we did with that
We did not want to take it on trust, so we obtained the radiographs and gave them to a sedimentologist who had never worked on this site, telling her only that they were cores from a shallow carbonate platform.
She reported cross-bedding, consistent dip, in place. Then we told her what it was.
Her reply runs in full at the foot of this story and she says she had worked it out by core nine.
The dates
Radiocarbon on whole rock, shells and cement returned roughly 2,780 to 3,510 years before present.
Our sedimentologist was firm that this is a weaker number than it looks: carbonate cement dates the cementing, not necessarily the sand. She asked us to print that as a real limitation rather than a formality, and here it is.
The question that keeps getting swallowed
Beachrock is a building material in that region and has been for a very long time. People quarry it. People have always quarried it.
So a formation that is natural in origin and was later walked on, tied to, cut into or robbed for stone is entirely possible, would leave very little trace, and is — our correspondent thinks — a far more interesting question than the one everybody argues about.
Nobody is investigating it, because the loud version of the question has taken all the oxygen.
What the man with the boat says
Kwabena Lindqvist-Moreau has taken visitors over the site since 1994 and thinks it is natural. He tells people so when they ask.
Our correspondent asked whether that cost him bookings.
"Not one," he said. "They still want to see it. It is a beautiful thing at four metres with the light coming down. The story brings them and the water keeps them. I have never once had somebody ask for their money back because a rock was only a rock."
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Sources & Method
The argument about this site has been conducted, for fifty years, by people looking at the outsides of the blocks. Outsides are ambiguous: natural jointing makes rectangles and so do masons. The insides are not ambiguous. So we obtained the radiographs of the seventeen oriented cores and gave them to a sedimentologist who had never worked on the site, with no indication of where they came from, and asked her what she saw.
Who we spoke to
- The 1977 cores and their X-radiographs, Published; the radiographs are reproduced in the literature. Obtained and read with a sedimentologist retained by this newspaper March 2026 Seventeen oriented cores. Oriented is the whole point: the core is marked so you know which way was north when it came out.
- The 1979 radiocarbon results, University radiocarbon laboratory, published. Read in the original report 2026 Whole rock, shells and cement, returning roughly 2,780 to 3,510 radiocarbon years before present.
- Dr. Rosalind Adeyemi-Vasquez, Sedimentologist, retained by this newspaper; had not worked on this site. Read the radiographs blind, before being told what the site was March 2026 Was told only that these were cores from a shallow carbonate platform and asked what they showed.
- Kwabena Lindqvist-Moreau, Dive operator, North Bimini; has taken visitors over the site since 1994. Interviewed on his boat and over two dives April 2026 Believes the formation is natural, says so to every customer who asks, and says almost none of them mind.
- Our correspondent's own dive, Two dives, one at slack water. Photographed the joints; measured nothing, because we are not qualified to and said so April 2026
Documents
- PX-2125 — X-radiographs of seventeen oriented cores taken from a submerged carbonate formation, Bahamas, 1977, with the 1979 radiocarbon report accepted
What we could not confirm
- Nothing about the cores. They are published, the radiographs are reproduced, and our sedimentologist read them without being told what the site was.
- Whether anybody has ever used the formation. Beachrock is a real building material in that region and always has been. A natural formation that people later walked on, tied boats to, or quarried is entirely possible and would leave very little trace.
- The radiocarbon dates as a formation age. Carbonate cement dates the cementing, not necessarily the sand, and our sedimentologist was firm that this is a real limitation and not a quibble.
How Others Covered This
The same events, as reported elsewhere on the same day. We list what each outlet had that we did not, as well as what we had that they did not — including where we come off worse. Why we print this.
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ApertureThe Water Over Bimini
A piece about the divers, the dive operators, and an island economy built on a question.
Had that we did not
The island, and four people who have made a living from this for thirty years. Better company than our piece keeps.
Left out
The cores.
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The Hollow PostTHE ROAD THAT PROVES ATLANTIS
Reported the formation as a built causeway, dated by 'suppressed' analysis to well before any known civilisation.
Had that we did not
That it is rectangular, arcuate, and startling to swim over. All true.
Left out
The seventeen cores, the X-radiographs, the radiocarbon dates, and the fact that the geologist who drilled it has published his methods for forty-eight years and answers his email.
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They Buriedthis newspaperThey Drilled Seventeen Blocks. The Stone Formed Where It Lies.
Went to the one piece of evidence that can distinguish a laid block from a formed one, which is what is inside it.
Had that we did not
The radiographs, read with a sedimentologist, and our own dive.
Left out
Our headline states a conclusion as flatly as the other paper states its own. The difference is the cores, and a reader who does not click will not see it. — V. Ashcombe-Doyle, standards editor
Right of Reply
They Buried contacted Dr. Rosalind Adeyemi-Vasquez, the sedimentologist we retained told what the site was after she had reported; read the full draft. Asked to reply once she knew what she had been reading. Printed unedited.
You did not tell me what these were and I want to say that I am glad, and also that I worked it out at core nine.
Here is what the radiographs show and here is what they do not.
They show cross-bedding: fine layers within the rock, laid at an angle, the way sand lies on a beach face. In every oriented core the layers lean the same way, toward deeper water. That is what beachrock looks like when it is still where it formed.
If somebody had cut these blocks and carried them and set them down, the internal layers would point wherever the block happened to be put. You would get a scatter. You do not get seventeen agreeing.
What the radiographs do not show is that nobody ever touched the site. That is a different question and I cannot answer it from a core. Beachrock is quarried in that part of the world, it has been for a very long time, and a formation that people used is not the same claim as a formation that people built.
I would ask your readers to hold those two apart, because the interesting version of the question is the second one and it keeps getting swallowed by the first.
Published unedited under our right-of-reply guarantee.
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