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In 1997, William Ryan and Walter Pitman, geologists from Columbia University, published evidence that a massive flood through the Bosporus occurred about 5600 BC. Glacial meltwater had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes, while sea levels remained lower. As the glaciers retreated, rivers emptying into the Black Sea reduced their volume and the water levels lowered. Then, about 5600 BC, as sea levels rose, the Mediterranean spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosphorus. The event flooded 60,000 mile² (155,000 km²) of land, and significantly expanded the Black Sea shoreline to the north and east. Ryan and Pitman wrote:
Although neolithic agriculture had by that time already reached the Pannonian plain, the authors link its spread with people displaced by the postulated flood. It has been suggested that the survivors' memory of this event was the source of the legend for Noah's Flood. Initial resistance came from those who looked for more detailed correlation with the Book of Genesis (see Noah's Ark and Mount Ararat) or preferred as prototype the similar marine ingression that formed the Persian Gulf in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley.
Marine archeologist Robert BallardRobert "Bob" Ballard grew up in San Diego and becme a scuba diver. He is a marine geologist, geophysicist, and submarine explorer affiliated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He is best known for finding the remains of the RMS Titanic on the claims he has identified ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, drowned river valleys and tool-worked timbers in 300 feet (100 m) of water off the coast of modern Turkey.
Other scientists dispute these conclusions. Later examinations by oceanographers such as Jun Abrajano and Ali Aksu have cast some doubt on this catastrophic flood theory concerning the Black sea, which show that, around 7,600 years ago, the then fresh water lake was actually emptying its waters into the Aegean and not vice versa.
The hypothesis remains an active subject of debate among archaeologists.
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