The only problem was that I had no evidence of an eastern highland flood. I was just going by how I read the text of scripture, not evidence from the natural world. So I started looking. I figured a key area would be Lake Urmia, and its mentioned several times in my book as a reference point in the flood. An Aras River valley flood would wash out there.
That led me to this paper (click on the "full text PDF" button on the upper right). On page 15 (study page 658) just above conclusions it notes: "The Holocene record is unavailable due to the loss of the upper 4.5 m of sediment." What? How did 4.5 meters of sediment get washed away right around the time I was interested in?
Look at the chart on page 13 (study page 656) closely. They took core samples corresponding to 200,000 years. Only once before in all that time was a layer of sediment lost from Lake Urmia. That was around 100,000 years ago and it was only about 1/10th the sediment lost in the Holocene. What happened in the last 10,000 years that took 10 times as much sediment as was taken in the last 200,000 years?
It is my hypothesis that these deposits were the result of a glancing blow from a regional flood which impacted the area to the north. Oceanographer Robert Ballard found in his explorations of the floor of the Black Sea that the freshwater Mollusk shells disappeared around 6,500 years ago (4,500 BC) or 7,000 years ago. They were eventually replaced with salt water mollusk some centuries later. Right around the time I am claiming for the southern flood as well. Two articles on that…
ReplyDeleteNY Daily News
Explorer Bob Ballard finds proof of ancient flood
Ballard and his team have uncovered ancient houses 400 feet below the surface of the Black Sea, which suggests a huge, sudden flood some 7,000 years ago.
https://www.trussel.com/prehist/news210.htm
The articles keep mention 7,000 years ago as the flooding because that is when the salt water mollusks replaced the freshwater ones but the freshwater ones went away, then a small gap, then the salt water ones replaced them.
This is just to the north of my proposed target zone at the same time.
It is well-known that Lake Van had a dramatic 300 meter rise around 6,500 years ago. The methods they used to determine the time frame could not distinguish any time periods less than two or three centuries, but that does not mean it took three centuries to rise to that level or that even that was the highest level it ever reached. It was just the smallest time frame they could determine and the height was a good average in that time frame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Van
In 1953 Dr. Friedrich Bender carbon-dated a sample from a wood beam near Mr. Cudi (or Judi) which locals said was a beam from the ark. It’s carbon date was about 6500 years old. See page 112 (18/36) from this link http://www.biblearchaeology.org/publications/BAS19_4.pdf
Then there is Lake Urmia. Click on this link https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236178574_Hydroclimatic_variations_over_the_last_two_glacialinterglacial_cycles_at_Lake_Urmia_Iran
(click on the “full text PDF” button on the upper right). On page 15 (study page 658) just above conclusions it notes: “The Holocene record is unavailable due to the loss of the upper 4.5 m of sediment.” What? How did 4.5 meters of sediment get washed away right around the time I was interested in?
Look at the chart on page 13 (study page 656) closely. They took core samples corresponding to 200,000 years. Only once before in all that time was a layer of sediment lost from Lake Urmia. That was around 100,000 years ago and it was only about 1/10th the sediment lost in the Holocene. What happened in the last 10,000 years that took 10 times as much sediment as was taken in the last 200,000 years?