Proof of Noah-Like Flood

The Ballard study site was located near the Turkish city of Sinop.

By Bill Newcottitanic discoverer Robert Ballard has found conclusive proof that a flood of Biblical proportions inundated an area north of Turkey about 7,500 years ago - a timetable and location that virtually match the Old Testament account of Noah.

While on a National Geographic expedition in search of ancient merchant vessels in the Black Sea last summer, Ballard also took time to investigate a theory proposed by Columbia University experts William Ryan and Walter Pitman.

A FLOOD THAT LASTED 40 YEARS

Studying sediment cores and the geography of the Black Sea, the pair theorized that the flood of Noah actually resulted from the collapse of a natural dam at the northeastern extreme of the Mediterranean Sea. Water rushing into the Black Sea basin through the narrow channel now known as the Bosporus would fill the basin like a bathtub, destroying towns and villages along its shores.

"The flood wasn't over in 40 days, though," said Ballard. "The whole event probably lasted about 40 years.

"If you were living on a flat area near the lake, you'd have to try and outrun the rising waters," said Ballard. "In some places, the surface of the Black Sea might have been widened by as much as a mile (1.6 kilometers) a day. Along cliffs, the waters probably rose about six inches (15 centimeters) a day."

For their original research, Ryan and Pitman focused on the northern shore of the Black Sea - a region which was in a direct line with the incredible forces created by the Bosporus cataract. The original ancient shoreline probably did notsurvive.

Ballard searched in a different direction.

FINDING PROOF

"We did much of our research in what is really one of the few good natural harbors in the Black Sea, At Sinop," said Ballard. The area would have been protected from rough flood waters by a point of land that juts out into the Black Sea to the west. "There, the flood waters would have simply risen, preserving the contours of the original beach," he said.

Bob Ballard from the Institute of Exploration with some of the shells and pebbles he retrieved that suggest the Black Sea was a fresh-water lake seven millennia ago. Ballard and his team - supported by National Geographic, and the J.M. Kaplan Fund - dropped a side-scan sonar sensor overboard from their boat...and found exactly what they were looking for.

"There was the classic beach profile: The flat shore area, the beach berm leading down to the old water level, and a sand bar just offshore," Ballard said. "It looked like any beach, anywhere on Earth - except it was under 550 feet (168) of water!"

Using a plain dredge box, Ballard scooped up a bucket of shells from the ancient shoreline. He sent them to Gary Rosenberg of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, for analysis, and the findings were astounding: Two were shells of extinct fresh-water mollusks, presumably from the pre-flood, fresh-water Black Sea. Seven were salt water mollusks, from the post-flood era.

And when Ballard had the shells radiocarbon-dated at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, the results were even more amazing: The youngest date for the fresh-water shells was about 7,500 years ago.

"That was right on the money," said Ballard. "Exactly what we would be looking for in a flood scenario."

NEXT YEAR'S EXPEDITION

In August 2000, Ballard and company head back to the Black Sea to search for more ancient merchant vessels - and more clues about the ancient flood.

"We'll have some robotic equipment this time, and a phased array sonar that will enable us to calculate the underwater topography and create a good bathymetric map," Ballard said.

"We'd like to find some evidence of human habitation: stone walls, pottery, hearths. We know enough now to really mount a hunt."

"If you were living on a flat area near the lake, you'd have to try and outrun the rising waters. In some places, the surface of the Black Sea might have been widened by as much as a mile (1.6 kilometers) a day."

Bob Ballard, explorer

Produced in partnership with Environmental News Network.