Message #173415

[Adam Hawthorne]

Ancient Black Sea Flood: Nuisance or Calamity?
Emily Sohn, Discovery News



The Black Sea | Discovery News Video  Feb. 19, 2009 -- Something happened along the shores of the Black Sea about 9,500 years ago. According to one theory, a huge flood suddenly drowned the landscape, forcing some of the planet's first farmers to move elsewhere.

A new study paints a different picture.

"I would say there was never a big flood," said Liviu Giosan, a geologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Cape Cod, Mass., and lead author of the study. "What we showed was that it's impossible."

The new work fuels an ongoing debate about the geologic history of the Black Sea. Research there has lagged behind other parts of the world, and many questions remain about how water levels have fluctuated over the years.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/19/black-sea-flood.html