When we do go deep, it can only get better. The discovery is the latest from the Black Sea project to look for ancient shipwrecks and perhaps evidence of a great flood. Late last year, the team discovered the outlines of an ancient coast 550 feet below the current waterline, the first visual evidence that a flood had occurred in the region eons ago. Literally my jaw dropped. The expedition also found old tree branches, pieces of wood and a trash heap with polished stones and other debris indicating human habitation, Ballard said.
Researchers are unsure if they are from the same period or related to an ancient flooded settlement.
In theory, organic material that shipworms quickly gobble elsewhere would lie untouched in the Black Sea's sterile depths. Later this month Ballard plans the first-ever exploration of the Black Sea floor. According to the theory, a cataclysmic deluge followed. Seawater from the Mediterranean poured into the Black Sea basin at 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls. The heavier salt water plunged to the bottom of the existing fresh water lake and began to fill the basin like a bathtub.