Noah and the Younger Dryas
Did an asteroid cause the flood mentioned in the OT
We live on a planet whose climate is constantly changing throughout its history. Many factors cause our climate to change. The two major factors are the changing rotation of the earth on its axis and asteroid impacts. Our earth has experienced cycles of extreme heating and cooling throughout its existence according to scientists. Did you know that we are currently living in an ice age where the temperature of the earth is slightly warming?
Our 4.54 billion-year-old planet probably experienced its hottest temperatures in its earliest days, when it was still colliding with other rocky debris (planetesimals) careening around the solar system. The heat of these collisions would have kept Earth molten, with top-of-the-atmosphere temperatures upward of 3,600° Fahrenheit. Even after those first scorching millennia, however, the planet has often been much warmer than it is now. One of the warmest times was during the geologic period known as the Neoproterozoic, between 600 and 800 million years ago. Conditions were also frequently sweltering between 500 million and 250 million years ago. And within the last 100 million years, two major heat spikes occurred: the Cretaceous Hot Greenhouse (about 92 million years ago), and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (about 56 million years ago). https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been
The Paleocene Epoch is a geological time-scale that lasted from 66 to 56 million years ago. This was the time of the dinosaurs and is famously marked for the extinction event of non-avian dinosaurs because of an asteroid impact, along with 75% of living species. The end of the epoch is marked by Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum. https://www.vedantu.com/geography/paleocene-eocene-thermal-maximum.
This so called “thermal maximum” is a fancy word for a temperature spike followed by a temperature decline in a relatively short period of time. These dramatic changes in temperature are caused by asteroid impacts. There can be no other explanation for such a sudden dramatic change in temperature. The heat of the impact, when the asteroid is huge enough, causes the temperature of the earth to increase quickly and dramatically. Then the temperature decreases rapidly into a nuclear winter and drifts into an ice age. An asteroid impact in the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan region of Mexico killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago per the science community.
An ice age is a long interval of time (millions to tens of millions of years) when global temperatures are relatively cold and large areas of the Earth are covered by continental ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within an ice age are multiple shorter-term periods of warmer temperatures when glaciers retreat (called interglacials or interglacial cycles) and colder temperatures when glaciers advance (called glacials or glacial cycles). Glacials and interglacials occur in fairly regular repeated cycles. The timing is governed to a large degree by predictable cyclic changes in Earth’s orbit, which affect the amount of sunlight reaching different parts of Earth’s surface. The three orbital variations are: (1) changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun (eccentricity), (2) shifts in the tilt of Earth’s axis (obliquity), and (3) the wobbling motion of Earth’s axis (precession). At least five major ice ages have occurred throughout Earth’s history: the earliest was over 2 billion years ago, and the most recent ice age began approximately 3 million years ago and continues today (yes, we are currently living in an ice age!). Currently, we are in a warm interglacial that began about 11,000 years ago. The last period of glaciation, which is often informally called the “Ice Age,” peaked about 20,000 years ago. At that time, the world was on average probably about 10°F (5°C) colder than today, and locally as much as 40°F (22°C) colder. One of the more recent intriguing findings is the remarkable speed of these changes. Within the incredibly short time span (by geologic standards) of only a few decades or even a few years, global temperatures fluctuated by as much as 15°F (8°C) or more. For example, as Earth was emerging out of the last glacial cycle, the warming trend was interrupted 12,800 years ago when temperatures dropped dramatically in only several decades. (Emphasis added). A sharp drop in temperature in a short time is not normal. https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/ice-ages-what-are-they-and-what-causes-them/
The Holocene is the name given to the last 11,600 years of the Earth's history — the time since the end of the last major glacial epoch, or "ice age." Since then, there have been small-scale climate shifts — notably the "Little Ice Age" between about 1200 and 1700 A.D. — but in general, the Holocene has been a relatively warm period in between ice ages. Another name for the Holocene that is sometimes used is the Anthropogene, the "Age of Man." This is somewhat misleading: humans of our own subspecies, Homo sapiens, had evolved and dispersed all over the world well before the start of the Holocene. Yet the Holocene has witnessed all of humanity's recorded history and the rise and fall of all its civilizations. https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/holocene.php
The most recent glaciation period reached peak conditions some 18,000-20,000 years ago before giving way to the interglacial Holocene epoch 11,600 years ago. At the height of the recent glaciation, the ice grew to more than 12,000 feet thick as sheets spread across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and South America. Corresponding sea levels plunged more than 400 feet, while global temperatures dipped around 10 degrees Fahrenheit on average and up to 40 degrees in some areas. The mastodons, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths and other megafauna that reigned during the glacial period went extinct by its end. https://History.com/
Because most of the water on Earth's surface was ice, there was little precipitation; rainfall was about half of current levels. The sea level was much lower, and the shorelines were typically much farther out because glaciation trapped water in ice sheets. https://Livescience.com/
What brought about the interglacial Holocene epoch 11,600 years ago? Rising CO2 levels did not bring about the end of the last ice age. As always, the culprit was an asteroid. The changing rotation of the earth’s orbit tends to have a cooling effect on our climate and encourages an ice age with the help of our oceans. CO2 may have played a factor in temperature rise millions of years ago when the earth had thousands of active volcanos but not in earth’s most recent history.
Over the last 8,000 years, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen steadily, while the average global temperature has declined. This fact contradicts the claim that CO2 is the main "global warming" control knob. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but its warming capability is almost saturated. Even at much lower concentrations, it absorbs almost all energy that is emitted in its absorption wavelength bands, so adding more CO2 to the atmosphere has no measurable effect on global temperatures. The climate has shown many fluctuations during the Holocene. The difference between the highest and lowest average temperature of the past 10 thousand years is about 3 °C. https://holoceneclimate.com/
The Younger Dryas was a time period on Earth that began roughly 12,800 years ago and finished 11,600 years ago (the beginning of the interglacial Holocene epoch). These 1,200 years marked the transition out of the last great ice age. It was a period where the earth was a very different place. Ice sheets covered most of North America, in particular, and also Europe. Sea levels were much, much lower, with a large proportion of landmass exposed. But something unusual happened. At 12,800 years ago, global temperatures heated up by as much as 15 degrees Celsius in only a few years, much, much faster than normal interglacial cycles. Suddenly, a large portion of the ice sheets melted, and the earth emerged out of the full ice age. Here marks the start of the Younger Dryas, an impact. https://Humanoriginproject.com/
The Younger Dryas is a period of 1,200 years marked by extreme temperature change. It was the transition from the last glacial period into the present interglacial period (the Holocene). In Greenland, temperatures rose 10°C (18°F) in a decade. During this time, the North American ice sheet (glacier), which drooped all the way to northern Missouri and Tennessee, rapidly melted and huge amounts of water were added to the oceans causing them to rise. Global sea level rose by a total of more than 120 meters (400 feet) as the vast ice sheet melted. The Younger Dryas mainly affected North America and western Europe but sea levels rose across the globe. Some humans survived this event but the megafauna became extinct (mastodons, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, etc.} What is intriguing is that Plato and the Bible refer to a flood event during this period in history. What caused this extinction event and the great flood? The cause was an asteroid that slammed into Greenland at the beginning of the Younger Dryas.
(This is a must-see video.)
In a remote area of northwest Greenland, an international team of scientists has made a stunning discovery, buried beneath a kilometer of ice. It’s an asteroid impact crater, 300 meters deep, 31 kilometers wide and bigger than Paris or the Beltway around Washington, DC. It is one of the 25 largest known impact craters on Earth, and the first found under any of our planet’s ice sheets. The researchers first spotted the crater in July 2015, while they were inspecting a new map of the topography beneath Greenland's ice sheet that used ice-penetrating radar data primarily from Operation IceBridge, an ongoing NASA airborne mission to track changes in polar ice, and earlier NASA airborne missions in Greenland. It is the youngest impact crater on earth.
(THIS IS A MUST-SEE VIDEO.)
How do we know that an asteroid impact was the beginning of the Younger Dryas (YD)? A Younger Dryas boundary was found across at least four continents, especially North America and Greenland. This “black mat” has been discovered at more than 100 sites across North America and Western Europe. This layer of soot is about four inches thick and contains excess platinum, quench-melted materials, and nanodiamonds.
The boundary contains unusually high levels of platinum group elements (PGEs). Earth’s crust doesn’t contain many PGEs, but comets do. YD boundary sites also contain high levels of small particles called microspherules that include minerals with signs of melting at very high temperatures. At least 22 black mat sites contain unusually high amounts of nanodiamonds, which are “extremely” rarely produced by natural terrestrial processes. The widespread existence of all these nanodiamond forms can only be reasonably explained by a cosmic impact. https://bigthink.com/hard-science/younger-dryas-impact/
The mat serves as a dividing line between epochs on Earth, mainly because only certain materials and fossils are found above or below this layer. For example, no spearheads or other archaeological evidence of the prehistoric PaleoAmerican Clovis culture has been found above the black mat. Many extinct megafaunal species are found below the black mat, but not within or above, including horse, camel, mastodon, direwolf, American lion and the short-faced bear which stood up to 14 feet tall, weighed about 1,700 lbs, and could run up to 40 miles per hour. https://bigthink.com/hard-science/younger-dryas-impact/
Did the Younger Dryas impact cause the extinction of human beings on the North American continent and the great flood of biblical times? The shock wave and extreme heat may have killed off almost all life in North America including homo sapiens. It melted the North American ice sheet from Greenland to Michigan and created a huge flood. The flood created the Channeled Scablands in the States of Washington and Oregon and the run-off overfilled the Pacific Ocean. Ocean levels rose 400 feet around the world causing a “great flood.” The Scablands were caused by ice-melt runoff from the destruction of the North American icesheet when an asteroid hit Greenland.
The massive prehistoric floods that eroded this landscape were not always obvious to scientists. Geologist J Harlen Bretz described in 1923 how water could have sculpted the features. “The channeled scablands are the erosive record of large, high-gradient, glacier-born streams,” he wrote in a research paper. He added: “The magnitude of the erosive changes wrought by these glacial streams is nothing short of amazing.” Over 500 cubic miles of water swept across the landscape in a wall of water hundreds of feet deep and washed away everything in its path in a matter of days. The water flow of this mega flood was as great as the combined flow of all the rivers in the whole world, times ten. http://www.sevenwondersofwashingtonstate.com/the-channeled-scablands.html
Earth flooded because of an asteroid impact 12,800 years ago. The whole of the North American ice cap was vaporized in one day by an asteroid impact and began the epoch in which we live today. https://opengeology.org/historicalgeology/case-studies/channeled-scablands/
The impact ejected tons of gas, dust and particles into the atmosphere creating a global winter which took over 1,000 years to subside. The huge asteroid impact in Greenland explains the Younger Dryas, the YD boundary, the Channeled Scablands, the extinction of megafauna, and the extinction of the Clovis people in North America. Was this impact the cause of the floods of Noah in the Bible, of the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems and of Plato and his city of Atlantis? Was this ancient flood, which is described by three independent sources, the result of the asteroid impact 12,800 years ago? Plato was born around 425 BC and died around 345 BC. He talked of a city of Atlantis existing 9,600 years before his birth. Plato mentions a war between Athens and Atlantis 9,000 years before his time. From Plato’s birth till today is about 2,500 years. Add the 9,600 years before his time and we get very near the date of the asteroid impact, the creation of the YD boundary and a worldwide flood. The Younger Dryas impact could very well be the cause of the great flood of Noah’s era.