Using a sonar device and drilling rigs, two Columbia University geophysicists working with Russian scientists probed the floor of the Black Sea. Together with Kasimieras Timkus, William Ryan and Walter Pitman recovered evidence that shows the Black Sea was once a freshwater lake cut off from the Mediterranean Sea. Until 7,150 years ago, the surface of the lake lay more than 100 meters (325 feet) below sea level. When the channel at Istanbul opened, saltwater rushed into the lake filling it to the level of the world ocean, drowning an area of land 50% greater than Ireland, almost the size of New York State.
The authors of the paper describing the event stated, "The permanent drowning of a vast terrestrial landscape may possibly have accelerated the dispersal of early neolithic foragers and farmers into the interior of Europe at that time" (Ryan, et al. 1997).
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This Project
In a book, Noah's Flood Ryan and Pitman suggested that this great flood was the same flood as Noah's flood, described in the Bible ( Ryan and Pitman, 1999).
It is beyond the scope of this project to examine the geological and archaeological controversy that has developed following the publication of Noah's Flood. This project will examine the Black Sea shelf that was drowned to gain perspective on the magnitude of the catastrophe. |
