The gosples have an unusual account of this period that wracks my brain as to it's meaning.
2 Peter 3:3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
My reading of this leads me to wonder if we may live in a completely changed world than the one inhabited by Noah.
When we read that the earth will melt with a ferverent heat, that the elements will melt, I take that to mean that we will go through yet another changing, a new heaven, and a new earth, the same yet changed, and mankind seems to be able to survive this change, a new universe overlaying and replacing the old, yet again?