Most likely the flooding of the Black Sea

Feb 22, 2008 19:06 GMT  ·  By

The Bible tells us about the universal deluge, whose unique survivors were Noah and his Arch in which he had loaded a pair of each animal species of the Earth. After 150 years of drifting, Noah landed on the Mount Ararat and life turned back to normal. The echoes of catastrophic deluges were found in many civilizations. The ancient Greeks described three deluges: one during the time of Ogyges, other one during the time of Deukalion and the last during Dardanus, an ancestor of the Troy.

Curiously, the latter two kings may have really witnessed deluges. Oceanologists found evidences that, 10,000 years ago, the Black Sea may had really experienced a catastrophic deluge. 18,000 years ago, during the last glaciation, the Black Sea was not a brackish sea, but an enormous freshwater lake. But at the end of the last Ice Age, 9,500 years ago, the melting of the glaciers raised the ocean level by around 100 m (330 ft) and with this the level of the Mediterranean Sea as well.

At that time, the lake of the Black Sea had its level 150 m (500 ft) below the Mediterranean. The two seas were separated just by a weak barrier, and when this one gave up, the water of the Mediterranean gushed into the basin of the Black Sea in a flow four times greater than that of the Niagara, flooding 100,000 square km (40,000 square mi). The catastrophic event could be heard on a range of 100 km (62 mi). Of course, the rumor of this phenomenon spread from Asia Minor (Turkey today) to the whole Middle East, including to the ancient Hebrews.

The first evidence of the deluge was found 15 years ago on the Ukrainian shores of the Black Sea. 140 m (480 ft) layers of clay and gravel presented traces of erosion, thus the place had once been the mouth of a river. In the same place, the researchers found fossils of freshwater snails and terrestrial plant roots, confirming the hypothesis of a freshwater lake. Drills made between 50-120 m (160-400 ft) revealed the presence of a large amount of cockle fossils (Cardium edule), bivalves common in the Mediterranean.

If the Mediterranean had slowly flowed into the Black Sea, as previously thought, the sediments would slowly have deposited, so the mollusks from deeper depths should have been older than those of the upper layers. But the C14 analysis showed that they all had the same age, pointing to the hypothesis of a rapid and violent flood.

The researchers believe the deluge had positive effects: it chased away the Neolithic farmers and shepherds from the shores of a freshwater lake and the survivors had to relocate, spreading agriculture - emerged into the Middle East - into the European and Caucasus areas: Romania and Georgia-Armenia. From Romania, along the Danube and its tributaries, agriculture could have spread into Austria, Germany, Czech area and Poland.