The new (July) National Geographic has a fascinating short article (p.
71) on the latest explorations of Robert Ballard, the discoverer of the
Titanic. Based on his research and exploration on the south shore of the
Black Sea, Ballard is presenting evidence that the biblical Flood
occurred about 7,500 years ago (in tune with the Bible's historical time
frame), and he believes that it involved a flooding of the formerly
freshwater Black Sea by the Mediterranean. His finds corroborate the
theories of William Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University, who
studied the north shore in 1993, with similar findings.

Vast quantities of water released by glacial melt over several thousand
years raised worldwide ocean -- and Mediterranean Sea -- waters to the
point that they collapsed a natural dam at the site of today's Bosporus.
This event allowed the flooding of seawater into the then fresh-water
and much smaller Black Sea, sending up to ten cubic miles of sea water
daily into the 500-foot lower Black Sea, and pushing water inland up to
a mile a day. This flooding lasted many years and converted the Black
Sea to a salt water body.

How do they know this? Ballard found mollusk shells and Dr. Gary
Rosenberg of this list and of the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia, identified them. Both freshwater and salt water mollusks
were found on a buried (500 feet deep!) beach. The freshwater shells
were extinct species of Dreissena and Turricaspia, 7,800 years old. The
seven species of salt water shells, Trophonopsis and Mytilus species
among them, were 7,300 years old. The search is on for human settlement
at the site.

Read all about it in your latest National Geo or check out the webpage:

<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/>

Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY