Some Kura-Araxas Basin Evidence of 6K Flood Event

I am still collecting evidence as I find it, so this piece is going to be more scattered and less conclusive than most of them. I hope by getting this circulated more evidence, for or against, will come my way so that I can reach a firmer conclusion.

I was reading this paper about fluvial deposits of the Algeti River in Georgia. I suspect ground zero for the flood of Noah (a local flood with global consequences) was the Araxas basin, or even around what is now Lake Urmia. It has been difficult for me to find good information about the depositional history of the Araxas basin, but the Algeti is a tributary of the Kura River Basin, with which the Araxes joins before they empty into the Caspian Sea.

My thesis is that it was a highland flood, with Mesopotamia receiving a glancing blow around 4,000-4,500 B.C. because they were "downstream". Lake Urmia offers the tantalizing hint that all of its layers for the Holocene, 4.5 meters worth, are missing as if they have been eroded away somehow. Lake Van is on the opposite side of a mountain range, but even the Wiki article on it notes that it had a "sudden rise" of three-hundred meters about 6,500 years ago (~4,500 B.C.). These dates fit well within the error bars of the timeline I lay out in my book.

I am collecting all the data I can and this paper has a couple of interesting figures from the periphery of my area of interest. To me, they point to a very large single flood event around 6K ago. At some points of measurement, the deposits from the 6K event were later eroded away (like Lake Urmia?) but where they remain they point to a sizable event. See below...

Click on image for larger view. The 6K event is the only one not given a range of time, and is the most dominant at many points, not just at this location.

Click on image for larger view. The 6K at point b) event looks under-sold to me. Where did the unmatched-in-size layer of gravel come from which was not present in a)?  Figure d) is the only one that looks close in size in terms of deposition of both gravel and sediment, but the two layers of gravel suggest to me that more than one aggradation event occurred during this time frame. IOW, the 6K event at b) was one huge event which dumped lots of gravel followed by sediment at once. No other event came close in effect but the 3.2K to 3.4K period (d)) that was closest was not a single event, but two very prominent floods on top of each other.

To see the post discussing the highland flood model from the book, see here. If you discount a local highland flood because you think the text describes a situation where they had an unobstructed view of the horizon for miles, watch this.

Hardly conclusive proof, but interesting that whenever I get data around 6K at what I believe was the target area, or even the edge of it, it sticks out in a way that would support the hypothesis.

Get the book.

You Tube Channel

Please "like" and "share".