Posted on 09/24/2006 6:00:46 PM PDT by blam
Flood made Britain into an island 'in 24 hours'
By Tim Hall
(Filed: 25/09/2006)
Britain may have become an island after a Biblical-style flood split it from Europe in less than 24 hours, according to new geological research.
The flood would have taken place between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, sweeping away hills between Britain and what is now France.
The theory could rewrite British prehistory, as current text-books teach that Britain - once a peninsula of continental Europe - split from the great land mass after a long process of erosion and rises in sea levels.
However, surveys of the Channel bed using new sonar techniques have revealed the remains of a huge valley, running south-west from the Strait of Dover.
The sonar survey, led by Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College, London, uncovered deep bowls, scour marks and piles of rubble on the sea bed that may have been caused by a torrent of water.
Dr Gupta said in a paper published at an academic conference: "In places, this valley is more than seven miles wide and 170 ft deep, with vertical sides. Its nearest geological parallels are found not on Earth but in the monumental flood terrains of the planet Mars.
"This suggests the valley was created by a catastrophic flood following the breaching of the Dover Strait and the sudden release of water from a giant lake to the north."
According to Dr Gupta's theory, France and Britain would have been linked by a high ridge of chalk hills, running roughly between Dover and Calais. To the north would have been a freshwater lake, fed by rivers, and deepened over thousands of years.
The lake, hundreds of feet above sea level, finally overflowed the chalk ridge and swept down towards the Atlantic. The water washed away the soft chalk hills and left the British Isles a separate land mass.
Dr Gupta's work is outlined in his book Homo Britannicus: the Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain, to be published next week.
GGG Ping.
Must be Global Warming! It's all Bush's fault!
Lucky blokes!
Where was FEMA?
Noah comes to mind.
Thank God for this flood.....
So they had a problem with floods runnig uphill in those days? Most likely, the ground sank.
When the giant ice dams of the last ice age let go in north america, very similar things happened (without creating any islands) including washing away 1/2 of a mountain range in the pacific north west, and carving the St Lawrence river valley
How fortuitous, except for those living in the present-day English Channel.
Current textbooks are often wrong in these details. The Theory of Evolution used to depend on small changes over many millions of years. But, when evidence of rapid change was found, the concept of puncturated equilibrium was introduced. A lot of stuff that appeared to require "a long process" now appears to have happened quite quickly indeed.
So...why isn't the grand canyon the nearest parralell?
Could that possibly imply a biblical style flood?
Nah, that's all fantasy. </sarcasm>
I wasn't aware the Rove weather machine was operational back then.
How did Bush start melting the polar caps so long ago?
I'll bet that women and children were harmed the most.
Is it wrong to hope for the same thing to happen to California and the New England States?
The latter, yeah.
Vertical walls of Marble Canyon. No rubble lying at the low valley floor built up to a height one would expect from eons of erosion over time. Evidence of a large inland sea in southern Utah. Why would anybody believe that the Grand Canyon was a cataclysmic flood instead of a gradual slow erosion process?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.