Bimini Road

The Bimini Road is the largest of three linear features. It trends northeast/southwest and has a pronounced hook at its southwest end. It consists of flat-lying, tabular, roughly rectangular, polygonal and irregular stone blocks measuring as much as 3–4 metres (10–13 ft) in horizontal dimensions, with the average size being 2–3 metres (7–10 ft). The larger blocks show complementary edges, which are lacking in the smaller blocks. Two similar, narrower and shorter linear features, approximately 50 and 60 m (160 and 200 ft) long, lie parallel to and shoreward of the Road; they consist of smaller blocks only 1–2 m (3–7 ft) in maximum horizontal breadth. Descriptions in various books and articles are said to exaggerate the regularity and rectangularity of the blocks.

The blocks have rounded corners and resemble giant loaves of bread. They consist of limestone composed of carbonate-cemented shell hash called beachrock, which is native to the Bahamas. The highly rounded form of the blocks indicates that a significant thickness of their original surface has been removed by biological, physical and chemical processes, so that tool marks or inscriptions would be unlikely to have survived.

On September 2, 1968, while diving in 5.5 meters (18 feet) of water off the northwest coast of North Bimini, Joseph Manson Valentine, Jacques Mayol and Robert Angove encountered what they called a pavement of rounded stones of varying size and thickness.

After a detailed examination, Gifford and Ball reported that the three features are unconnected at the southwest end, that no evidence exists of two courses of blocks or of a single block set squarely atop another, that bedrock closely underlies the whole area, and that the blocks of the inner and middle features have always rested on a layer of loose sand. They saw no regular or repeated patterns of grooves that might be interpreted as tool marks. These observations are disputed by other investigators, who claim that a second course of blocks can be seen where sand has washed away; detailed evidence for a continuous second layer has not been published in a reputable scientific venue.