Noah's Flood
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Anyone who ever drip-dried after four days of rain, let alone forty days, can relate to the story of Noah's flood. Only in the past few years has science come up with a strong explanation for this Biblical tale. Hi I'm Dave Thurlow for the Weather Notebook.

Archeologists have found what could be one of the cities that went under water. Here's how the theory goes, as conceived by two geologists, William Ryan and Walter Pitman.

About 7,000 years ago, people lived along the shores of the Black Sea, just north of present-day Turkey. The Black Sea is now linked to the Mediterranean, but at that time they were separated by a narrow land bridge. The Black Sea then was a relative puddle. Its water level was some 300 feet lower than today, mainly because the earth was still warming up after the last Ice Age. As the glaciers melted, the Mediterranean slowly rose to the level of the land bridge. Then, one awful day, the Mediterranean apparently burst across the land bridge and inundated the Black Sea in a catastrophic flood. Those who survived migrated elsewhere to dry land. They brought with them the story of a flood that seemed to swallow up the whole world.

This summer a team of explorers from National Geographic went below the Black Sea, about 12 miles north of the Turkish coast. There they found remnants of civilization: wooden beams, branches, and stone tools. The Turkish government allowed the team to bring up artifacts. Soon we'll know whether the artifacts' age corresponds with the geologic record of the most famous flood in history.

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