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.
There is not a single mention of continents in the Bible. Nor in the Qu'ran.
Adding extra-Biblical "interpretations" is not consistent. The Word was complete, wasn't it? Inventing weird notions about "how it could be true", about "it might be possible" is apostasy.
That is a clear flood event. I studied some of the terrain and features on the ground a few decades ago, but to really see them all you have to do is do a fly-over. Pretty clear that a lot of the terrain consists of erosional features.
Hmmm. Guess that link doesn't work. Well, cf. my post 74, anyway!
Staying in the course is a moral or political argument. If the god of Genesis wanted water to cut through meanders, He would surely have made it so {poof}.
If all societies descended from Noah, then they would all have started with the same flood story which would have been modified through the ages. So that you end up with what we have now. Slightly different variations on the Noah story.
But if all societies hadn't descended from Noah, then you wouldn't expect those similarities to exist.
Post #74 was a long time back! I either missed or forgot it.
Actually, that is a good photograph you posted. The channeled scablands are a very good example of flood geology. The dates and boundaries are pretty well known. I have actually studied a few of the formations, and have flown over the area--once you know what to look for, that's the way to really see the evidence.
To suppose a global flood (obviously of much greater magnitude than this flood), at about a third the age, leaves one to wonder where the evidence might be. We can see the evidence of post-glacial floods, like the channeled scablands, in several areas, and we can track where they went and at what times.
But we can't find this more recent (ca. 2350 BC), much larger, global flood anywhere.
Because it was a Creationist who came up with the idea, based on his interpretation of Gen 1:9 which says God gathered all the seas into one place. He inferred from that scripture that the land must have all been adjoined.
Like it or not, that's history.
Re 179: In the first picture, there are numerous quasi-linear water bodies to the west of the present channel with lengths on the order of 0.5 to 1 mile, according to the photo. Some suggest oxbow lakes. Some may be due to glacial sculpturing and some may be due to pre-existing water channels. How much uplift has occurred in this area in post-Pleistocene times?
Because it was a Creationist who came up with the idea, based on his interpretation of Gen 1:9 which says God gathered all the seas into one place. He inferred from that scripture that the land must have all been adjoined.
Like it or not, that's history.
Agreed. But is there a clear way to distinguish a chaotic flood event like from draining ancient Lake Missoula and the more usual V-shaped valleys from slow erosion?
This was an area overridden by glaciers, and the local flood occurred during their retreat.
I suppose you know the story of J. Harlen Bretz, and how he was ostracized and more or less sacrificed his career to his study of the scablands, and his insistence that they were formed by a catastrophic flood - just because Geology had had all it wanted to hear about Catastrophic Floods!
But we can't find this more recent (ca. 2350 BC), much larger, global flood anywhere.
Yes, it's hard to figure how people can adhere to the idea. But they do.
But if all societies hadn't descended from Noah, then you wouldn't expect those similarities to exist.
If all societies descended from Noah, you would expect DNA evidence to show that. It does not.
The stories of floods around the world reflect the fact that many human populations live near bodies of water! Look at New Orleans! Ever hear of Johnstown? How about tsunamis? Do they count too? Floods happen!
To try to take hundreds of flood stories and make them all tie into a "global" flood which wiped out all extant populations is a huge stretch. But about right for creation "science."
Its about apologetics, not science.
I am familiar with that story. I studied under one of the folks who ended up supporting it and seeing it through to acceptance.
That's the way science works. You bring evidence, and folks can verify that evidence, and you will make it through the BS filter.
We had a Katrina and a Tsunami, but that doesn't get translated into the world flooded, with an ark. I really think that's a stretch to assume local floods resulted in global flood stories.
We just found a second code in DNA last month. I don't think we understand DNA well enough to make the claim you make for it.
Then you say that one particular myth is therefore proven. I find this illogical. Why "that one"?
If you give intellectual weight to all these myths, why single out one? Is there any evidence? [Quoting one tradition's sacred text is not evidence.]
And you assert that Noah's progeny established all these societies and carried not only the myth with them, but also their genes. The evidence is that American Indians are not closely genetically related to Semitic peoples [Noah] (unless you are a Mormon Christian, then all bets are off).
You may be right, but the evidence is far from persuasive.
The Black Sea event is the most likely source for the "global" flood story, but that event wasn't global. There's a lot of "creative storytelling" in this one.
The only evidence for a global flood is the Bible, and I'm sorry to have to tell you the creationist geologists who were looking for the proof gave up about 1830.
It has been a staple of creationists and Bible literalists since then, but nobody else takes it seriously. The evidence is simply not there.
200?
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