June 17 2001 EASTERN EUROPE
Titanic explorer hunts for signs of Noah's ark
Julia Damianova, Varna, Bulgaria
THE explorer who found the wreck of the Titanic is to mount an expedition this summer in search of proof that the Black Sea was created by an enormous flood that may have been the inspiration for the biblical story of Noah's ark.
Robert Ballard, an American oceanographer, will investigate claims that rising sea levels caused by the passing of the last ice age pressed a natural dam to burst about 7,000 years ago, submerging 19,000 square miles of inhabited land around a huge freshwater lake.
Ballard is convinced he will find evidence to show that the Black Sea is what was left after a flood so immense that it gave rise to the legend of Noah. A wall of water from the swollen Sea of Marmara is believed to have been broken through what is now the Bosporus valley with 200 times the force of the Niagara falls.
Professor Petko Dimitrov, head of the Department of Oceanography at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, who is working with the Americans, said there had been suggestions for more than 20 years that the flood had wiped out human settlements, although the deluge was more likely to have lasted for 40 years than 40 days.
Dimitrov believes people fleeing their drowned homes spread the stories of a flood that became the basis not only of the story of Noah, but of similar accounts in other cultures.
Ballard, who found the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, has made two exploratory trips to the area, during which he and his team found ancient shells and a freshwater shoreline 550ft below the murky surface.
They also came across signs of buildings under 311ft of water, some 12 miles off the Turkish Black Sea coast near the convergence of two submerged ancient river beds.
Ballard believes the finds, including beams, fragments of walls, stone tools and a rubbish dump, prove habitation in an area where water levels rose catastrophically.
"It is beyond our wildest imagination," he said. "I don't think there's any doubt that people were down there when the water came in. What we want to know is: who were they?"
Ballard's team, based aboard the Bulgarian research ship, Akademik, will use state-of-the-art technology such as the Argus, a robotic submersible equipped with three pivoting underwater video cameras, lights, an electronic still camera, thrusters and a scanning sonar system that make man-made structures stand out.
The Argus is attached by another cable to a remotely operated vehicle known as Little Hercules, which has a broadcast-quality underwater video camera and an underwater lighting system.
Ballard believes the almost complete lack of oxygen in the Black Sea will facilitate the expedition's work. "It's really a giant bathtub full of salt water that has gone stagnant," he said. "The absence of oxygen means there are no wood-boring organisms, meaning much of what is down there will be intact."
His search was inspired by Noah's Flood, a 1998 book by Dr William Ryan and Dr Walter Pitman, marine geologists from Columbia University, that posited a link between the flood and the Black Sea.
Ryan has hailed Ballard's findings as vindication of his work. "This is amazing," he declared after the underwater Black Sea settlement was found. "It's going to rewrite the history of ancient civilisations, because it shows the biblical flood took place and that the ancient shores were occupied by humans. This is a stunning confirmation of our thesis."