The initial geological problem posed by Bittlestone — whether sea levels in the region might once have been higher, such that the narrow isthmus now connecting Paliki to the rest of Kefalonia might once have been submerged — turned out to be exactly the opposite, the sea didn't fall but the land rose, and the periodic earthquakes that triggered this upthrust simultaneously brought down catastrophic rockfalls. Paliki sits on the edge of the European continental shelf, which is being pushed continuously from the southwest by the African plate, in a plate tectonics shift which causes constant earthquakes: the Ionian islands were devastated by one such earthquake as recently as 1953, and there have been many before that. Observation of many geologic clues in the region shows that uplift — the result of earthquakes — has in fact occurred.