Ten thousand years ago, the Black Sea was an overflowing, fresh water lake. Then, during an especially arid period, its evaporation exceeded input, so that its level gradually lowered more than 100 meters. Ancient shorelines show that it was a much smaller lake, occupying only the deep, southern basin of the Black Sea. Meanwhile, global sea level was rising. About 7500 years ago, it overtopped the Bosphorus and the ocean suddenly flowed into the sea, filling the deep basin and flooding over the broad shelves to the north. This event may have been the basis for the flood story found in ancient Phoenician writings and in the Gilgamesh epic, which in turn were precursors of the biblical story of Noah's flood.

To view this movie, click on the images.

Download: Flooding of the Black Sea, Movies and Images (14 MB).

This movie was created by Tanya Atwater following the story presented in Ryan and Pitman, Noah's Flood: the New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History, 1998.

Comments on this and all of the materials offered on this site are welcomed: atwater@geol.ucsb.edu