News Release : Danube Delta Holds Answers to ‘Noah’s Flood’ Debate

[Adsos Letter]

Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

January 22, 2009
Source: Media Relations


Did a catastrophic flood of biblical proportions drown the shores of the Black Sea 9,500 years ago, wiping out early Neolithic settlements around its perimeter? A geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and two Romanian colleagues report in the January issue of Quaternary Science Reviews that, if the flood occurred at all, it was much smaller than previously proposed by other researchers.

Using sediment cores from the delta of the Danube River, which empties into the Black Sea, the researchers determined sea level was approximately 30 meters below present levels—rather than the 80 meters others hypothesized.

“We don’t see evidence for a catastrophic flood as others have described,” said Liviu Giosan, a geologist in the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department.

Ten thousand years ago, at the end of the last glacial period, the Black Sea was a lake—cut off from the Sea of Marmara and beyond it the Mediterranean by the Bosphorus sill. Debate in geological and archaeological circles has focused on whether, as glaciers melted and global sea levels began to rise, the Bosphorus sill overflowed gradually or whether a flood broke through the sill, drowning some 70,000 square kilometers and wiping out early Neolithic civilizations in the region. In addition to questions about the rate of the flood, investigators continue to debate the extent of the flood -- a debate centered around what the level of the Black Sea was 9,500 years ago.

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=54863&ct=162

[Jackpine Radical]

1. In other news, Noah's boat is discovered to have been made of steel.

He built it with the world's first ark welder.

[EOTE]

5. Rim shot followed by a collective groan. NT

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. How do you spell "acetylene" in Aramaic????

:rofl:

[Ian David]

2. The flood was actually on Planet Xenu and Noah's Ark was a spaceship.

Sounds like something Eric Frank Russel would write, anyway.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. "9,500 years ago" B-b-but, the Earth is only 6,000 years old! n/t

[HereSince1628]

4. Well, that at least defines a new level to search for neolithic artifacts.

I'm pretty sure if your village along a freshwater lake gets flooded under 20 feet of sea it would still be a legend making event.

[WCGreen]

6. There is better evidence that a great flood occurred

when the Persian Gulf expanded when the Glaciers melted.

I think the reason the flood appears in so much of our collective mythical literature is that a massive flood is such a powerful, unexpected and therefor traumatic event to people that they speak of it for untold years. I believe this myth is then co-opted by shamans and inevitably becomes a cleansing process perpetrated by an angry god...

[Jackpine Radical]

8. That's pretty much wnat's meant by an archetype.

[WCGreen]

13. Didn't read the full article to get to the archetypal flood reference..

[KamaAina]

9. A cleansing process, you say?

There is an urban legend out there that says the name "Katrina" means "cleansing"...

[serrano2008]

10. Finally, someone clears this up for us.

After all these years with some scientists saying "The Flood" did happen and others saying it didn't, I'm glad we finally can finally have some closure knowing that there are still lots of scientists on both sides.

[KharmaTrain]

11. This Is Being Cleared Up...

National Geographic showed a program of researchers who've been hot on the Black Sea rise for several years. This is just another piece in a puzzle that is starting to come together. There have been discoveries of ancient villages hidden under the sea and geologists who have proof the Bosporous Sill...did implode that led to not only the lake rising, but it also going from fresh to salt water. Real intereting stuff.

One reasearcher was asked about the Noah's flood "theories" and said it was quite easy for the stories of a cataclysmic flood to have passed by word of mouth into the Middle East and Egyptian regions where they surely were embellished. He compared it to the mythology around Atlantis that many now believe was a romantic version of the explosion of a volcanic island in the Aegean Sea that wiped out coastal civilizations around the region.

As always when it comes to these issues, those who want to believe will always find a tidbit or theory to support their beliefs.

[L. Coyote]

15. The great food in Mesopotamia is much more recent, and also where the Noah myth arose.

There is good evidence in places like Ur of the devastation of the region and latter resettlement in the same locations.

In Iraq there are ziggurats that encapsulate thousands of years of successive building phases over the same location.

Can we even imagine such stability? And today, these ruins are US military bases!

[spin]

12. Myths are the smoke of history...the urban legends of yesteryear...

In mythology, a deluge myth, or flood myth, is a story of a great flood sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution. It is a widespread theme among many cultural myths, though it is perhaps best known in modern times through the biblical story of Noah's Ark, the Hindu Puranic story of Manu, through Deucalion in Greek mythology or Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_myth

Somewhere, sometime in the early development of civilization there was a flood or a tsunami. Someone and his family survived on a boat with some animals. Being a good story, it was passed down from generation to generation and from culture to culture. Religious leaders appropriated the story and modified it to fit their God/Gods.

We have our own myths in the United States. For example the story of the Alamo and Davy Crockett:

The prevailing legends surrounding our beloved Davy Crockett paint images worthy of the silver screen. Legend #1: Crockett's deadly rifle fire killed five Mexican gunners as they attempted to fire a cannon at the fort, and one of his bullets just missed General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. As exciting as this story sounds, a proud American public thought Crockett deserved an even better finale, and invented Legend #2: Crockett bravely clubbed Mexican soldiers with his empty rifle, protecting his section of the fort wall until he succumbed to bullets and bayonet wounds. Legend #3: Crockett ended up as a slave in a Mexican salt mine. And in the Disney television show, Crockett survived the battle and continued on to many more adventures. His legend became bigger than that of Daniel Boone.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/historical_myths/56808

[Zhade]

14. What debate? The Noah story is a myth that never happened.

NT!

[Adsos Letter]

16. The article addresses the prospect of getting at the event....

which was the basis for so many flood myths worldwide. Most myth is not pure fantasy, but is based upon some important event, which assumes true mythic status as its memory is passed through generations.