Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!msb From: msb@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) Newsgroups: talk.origins,talk.religion.misc Subject: Re: Creation, Evolution, and Flood Message-ID: <1956@dciem.UUCP> Date: Mon, 22-Sep-86 19:21:50 EDT Article-I.D.: dciem.1956 Posted: Mon Sep 22 19:21:50 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 22-Sep-86 21:39:28 EDT References: <136@spectrix.UUCP> Reply-To: msb@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) Organization: NTT Systems Inc., c/o DCIEM, Toronto Lines: 36 Xref: dciem talk.origins:43 talk.religion.misc:101 Summary: Mediterranean refilled too long ago to account for flood legends Chris Lewis (whose Reply-To reads "clewis@.UUCP"!) writes: > Question: one of the theories being bandied about is the possibility > that the Mediteranean may have been dry at one point (straits of > Gibraltar being closed), and an earthquake or other landslip at one > point would have punctured the "wall" at Gibralter and the Atlantic > filled the Mediteranean in. > > Anybody know what the conjectured date for this is? Could this have been > "remembered" somehow and become the basis for a lot of similar of > legends? (Mu, Atlantis, the Flood, Gilgamesh etc.)? See two articles by Kenneth J. Hsu in Scientific American, in the December 1972 and May 1978 issues. The evidence that the Mediterranean was in fact dry is very convincing*. However, the date of the drying-out is estimated at 6 million years ago, while the refilling is given as 5.5 million years ago in the earlier article, 5.2 million in the later one. Since nobody believes there were humans that long ago, it would not appear that this could be the origin of any flood legends. *For instance, under the sediments of the Mediterranean floor there are vast deposits of salt; also, at the mouths of great rivers such as the Nile, there are underwater canyons, now likewise buried, exactly such as the rivers would have carved if the sea level was thousands of feet lower. The fossils detected from immediately after the refilling carry implications about the salinity level, from which the rate of refilling can be deduced. It turns out that the flow past Gibraltar must have had about 1,000 times the volume of Niagara Falls -- and it still took 100 years to fill the basin! Mark Brader, utzoo!dciem!msb Until 3,000 million years ago we can say not a lot happened although further study would not come amiss. Then signs of life appeared, including some large reptiles and, very recently, bipeds. It is too soon to say whether these bipeds will play an important part in the world's story. -- Colin Morris in "History Today"