Where do you get the idea that the area studied by Struani was never
covered by more than 500 feet of water? The topography of the
Mediterranean was quite different 5.5 million years ago. Africa is moving
north at around 2 centimeters per year. This means that in 5 million years
there has been a shortening of the distance between Africa and Europe by
110 kilometers. The collision has caused the uplift of certain areas. So
you can't assume that just because it is high today that it was high 5.5
myr ago.
It nevertheless strikes me that, if Noah
>had lived in a marginal area, such as that which has been pushed up to
>form the Piedmont, he would have been washed up on the south coast of
>Europe. Only if he were somewhere in the central depths could he have
>been cast up to the east.
Why? The inflowing Atlantic waters would push everything to the west, not
to the north.
I don't know enough about the river flow into
>the basin 4.5 Mya to venture a guess where in the area there would have
>been adequate water.
The Nile was where it is 5.5 myr ago, the Rhone was where it is today.
These rivers cut deep canyons into the continental shelf which filled with
pliocene sediments. (Kenneth J. Hsu, The Mediterranean was a Desert,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 102; William B. F. Ryan
and Maria Bianca Cita, "The Nature and Distribution of Messinian Erosional
Surfaces - Indicators of a Several-Kilometer-Deep Mediterranean in the
Miocene", Marine Geology, 27(1978), p. 211..)
But I recall that there have been numerous
>references to the Nile, whose flow apparently watered a low-lying area.
>From this area, obviously, the Ark could have been pushed ashore in
>Lebanon or Israel, even Turkey. But where else were the oases?
My preferred location of where the ark was picked up is in the western
Mediterranean. THis is because the Tigris, Euphrates, Nile and Dhiarizos of
Cyprus would be found in that general area. There would have been lots of
water in that region.
>
>Another thought obtrudes. If the influx of water had produced an effect
>akin to a storm surge, the Ark could have been slapped down pretty hard.
>How much of a surge was there? Could the Ark have been airborne?
If you have ever seen a cross section of Niagara falls, you know that the
falls looks like:
........
------- .
.......| .
.....| .
...| .
..| .
--------------------------
where the dots represent the falling water. The falls undercuts the lip
and eventually the ledge falls. At Gibraltar as water began to come into
the Mediterranean, there would have been a big waterfall. After a few
thousand years the falls would have retreated (just as Niagara has over the
past 7000 years), and would be against the Atlantic margin. It would look
like this:
Atlantic Mediterranean
............
------- .
|.......| .
|.....| .
|...| .
|..| .
--------------------------
Note that the thinnest part of the dam is now at the bottom of the dam.
This is an extremely unstable situation for dams. All dams are build with
the widest part at the base and the thinnest at the top. This is to hold in
the pressure at the lower part of the dam.
Eventually this thin part would fail causing an inrush of water. It would
look like:
Atlantic Mediterranean
..............>
..............>
..............>
..............>
..............>
---------------------------
How deep was the failure? it was at least 3000 feet deep because certain
atlantic benthonic creatures that can only live in >3000 feet of water and
cant come up above that level are found in the sediments immediately after
the infill of the Mediterranean. They were washed in but it means that the
break was at least 3000 feet deep. I have calculated that a breach 15 miles
wide and 3000 feet deep with water moving at 15 miles per hour could fill
the Mediterranean in 8.4 months. The most rapid speed water has been
observed to flow in a stream is 24-25 mph.
At this rate of inflow, the ark would have merely been lifted. It wasn't a
5000 foot wall of water coming at it, it would have been only a few feet at
a time, especially if the ark were in the eastern Mediterranean.
Hope this helps.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution