Ballard & the Black Sea: The Search for Noah's Flood

Almost every culture on Earth includes an ancient flood story. Details vary, but the basic plot is the same: Deluge kills all but a lucky few. Columbia University geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman wondered what could explain the preponderance of flood legends. Their theory: As the Ice Age ended and glaciers melted, a wall of seawater surged from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea. Maritime explorer Bob Ballard is combing the floor of the Black Sea in search of the remains of ancient dwellings, which would buttress a new theory that a cataclysmic flood struck the region some 7,000 years agoswelling the sea and eventually becoming the basis of the Noah story.