Glenn also referred to the Messinian strata in the Piedmont near Alba.
The earliest has a lampfish which only "lives in water greater than 150 m
deep." This is about the 500 feet I noted in my response. Let it be more,
this is the edge of a hole at least five times deeper, and so would
average at least 10 F hotter. So the strata at Alba cannot represent the
conditions of the eastern basin, which would certainly be hotter. There
is no place on earth today that begins to equal conditions there. I don't
think there was ever another hold that deep.
The Italian peninsula was already in place 5.5 Mya, along with the
shallow sill that stretches south to Africa. So anything near the area
that gave rise to the strata at Alba would have been carried north and
west by water flowing into the Mediterranean. Water flowing through a
nattor opening into a wide area does not flow linearly (A), but eddies
more extremely that represented by (B). Indeed the current flow of the
Mediterranean is marked by two large counter-clockwise eddies, one in the
western basin and the other in the deeper eastern basin. Only after the
water reaced the top of the sill would it begin to flow into the eastern
basin, where the Ark would have to be to be carried ashore in Asia Minor,
as postulated by Glenn's theory.
A B
^
-----> | /
----------> / /
---------------> --------------->
----------> \ \
-----> | \
I found another complication for it mentioned in the literature, namely
that the Mediterranean basin flooded and desiccated many times between 6
and 5.5 Mya. This would certainly be a problem for anyone attempting to
live there. But I have no data on which to evaluate this claim of
multiple (partial ?) inundations. In addition, if the deepest subduction
areas, especially south of Turkey, never dried out completely, the
humidity of the area would probably remain high, intensifying the effect
of the temperature.
As to the surge I mentioned, I never expected a 5000 foot wall of water.
However, the breakdown of the dam at Gibraltar, as illustrated by Glenn:
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.
**************
would surely lead to a wave similar to a tsunami. Since these propagate
across the entire Pacific, such could have reached the western edge of
the infilling Mediterranean. Were the Ark in deep water away from the
shore, such a wave would have passed innocently, probably unnoticed. But
this seems unlikely. If the break occurred before the water reached the
Ark, there would be no effect. If the break came before or just as the
western basin filled, this would be the scenario. But were the Ark
already carried by the inflow toward the shore, the surge could have been
devastating, with the vessel stranded with a stoved in hull and more
water coming. This is not in the least unlikely.
However, what seems to me more likely is that a family smart enough to
build an Ark would have the good sense to get out of an area hot enough
to make Death Valley or the Dead Sea look like paradise.
Dave