This page looks at examples of canals, artificial islands, ponds and harbours along the gulf coast of Louisiana where there exists a large number of oil exploration canals making it difficult to distinguish between those that might have been ancient and those of modern times.

The location was first brought to the public attention by John Jensen, see Ancient Canal Builders. Although not claiming the Louisiana site as the home of Atlantis, John's page proposes that an ancient, aquatic based culture flourished in the Americas since the Gulf Coast is covered in the remains of apparantly ancient canals about 135ft wide and extra wide canals such as about 1 stade of 605ft and even greater canals as much as 900ft in width. Some of these canals run into the sea in what is now the Gulf of Mexico, crossing islands and emerging on land again suggesting they were built at a time when the water level was lower, i.e. before the land was drowned at the end of the last ice age by the rising waters of the Gulf of Mexico. However the great majority of canals in this area were created by the oil industry and these are considered by some people as being the cause of the destruction and sinking of a large part of the Louisiana wetlands areas. The vast number of oil industry canals also make it difficult to identify with certainty ancient canals in this region.