In  Would we recognise Lemuria if we found it  I mentioned the alleged 120 Million year old map of the Ural Region.

Having a quiet hour I decided to dig further and see what had happened since  the  alleged original discovery in the late 1990s.

A few passes round Google showed  all the entries were recycling the same information and at least one entry cited it in support of claims that  I found so flaky that I could not even read to the end of the page. There are photographs showing a cracked stone with no explanation of the reasoning that led to it being accepted as a map, and some interviews with  Alexander Chuvyrov, the discoverer, but all seemed to be saying the same thing over and over again,  apparently based on the article in Pravda.  you can find a typical presentation here. (look for “Dashka”) Typos here suggest that the article was cut and pasted from elsewhere.

The links in this URL do however show photos of  the alleged map.

Well there could be legitimate reasons for the recycling.  Maybe Chuvyrov had stopped working on the slab, maybe he had found all he could and there was no more information.  However one clear statement was that the lab had been investigated and endorsed by the Centre for Historical Cartography in Wisconsin USA.  However I found a  statement here from the History of Cartography Project which I   quote in full

Statement from the History of Cartography Project:
1. The History of Cartography Project is not the "Centre for Historical Cartography in Wisconsin" cited in the Pravda article.
2. We do not know of any such center in Wisconsin.
3. Nobody in America known to us has seen the original map and we believe that no-one who has not seen the original should comment on it.
4. Professor Chuvyrov was in touch with us two years ago about this map, and we said then that we could not comment on the map without seeing it and the evidence for its authenticity
5. Professor Chuvyrov told us recently that he did not authorize the article appearing in Pravda.

The writer of the URL concludes that the map exists and can be seen in a museum of Archaeology.
Assuming the stone is a relief map estimates of its age vary from a couple of hundred years old  through 3,000 years old to 100,000 years old to 120 Million years old.

At this point it was fairly certain the slab exists and is on show somewhere but the  age of the slab and the interpretation of it are unclear.  The 120 Million year date was  guessed from the age of a fossil shell embedded in it. Logically however the slab could be younger.

The next step was to try and check up on the discoverer. Initially I had great problems finding any details of him. There is a biography ( in Russian)  and photo of him here. I  skimmed the biography and checked out one of the articles  via Google and it does exist. So we can conclude that at the time Chuvyrov was probably  a professor of Physics at Bashkir State University which I have no reason to believe is not genuine, However Chuvyrov is an expert in Liquid crystals,  so the analysis of the  composition of the stone is perhaps out of his area of expertise. More worryingly I found no evidence he is till on the faculty. I have still to hear from the rector on this point and have no way I can contact him other than  a phone  number on a website,  or snail mail, and  I am not yet ready to  contact him.

And there my investigation must rest for now.  It seems the “Map” exists and is on show and that Chuvyrov was a genuine professor of Physics. The slab is suggestive of a highly advanced technical civilisation but  not nearly as conclusive as has been suggested. Independent examination of the slab, and any other slabs that have been found is vital. However even if the lab can be proven to be only  a few hundred years old and Chuvyrov's  statements about its composition are verified the stone still raises a lot of  interesting questions.

For now I want to find where the map is on show and whether anyone other than Chuvyrov has examined it. I would also like to contact him.

My provisional theory is that the stone is an artefact needing explanation but the 120 million year  date is the result of assuming the shell  became embedded in the stone after it was created then fossilised. There is a lot of hype and  involved and it has the makings of a good mystery.  Unlike the Brentford Griffin or St Juttemis there seems to  be something solid to  investigate.  I intend to pursue this further.