How did plants and animals survive and spread throughout the earth after the Biblical Flood?
In a tropical antediluvian climate, large amount of plants thrived before the Flood. Tidal waves and water erosion from swollen rivers ripped up plants, sweeping them out to sea. Masses of floating vegetation clung together moving with the currents. Tidal waves destroyed some mats and others just sunk.
Plants in the high hills and mountains spent less time at sea being covered by water last. This increased the probability for plants on floating vegetative mats to stay viable. After the 150th day mountains uplifted. Land began to reappear above the sea.
As floodwaters receded some of these plants parts, like roots and rhizomes, became trapped in the warm, wet mud. They sprouted through asexual budding from rhizome and broken branches. Dead rodents and birds on these vegetation mats would complete the rotting process on land. This allowed seeds remaining in the digestive system of the animal’s carcass to germinate in the warm mud and silt. Evidence from scientific research supports the fact that many seeds can germinate after extended exposure in water. Seeds can still germinate even after being soaked in saltwater after 140 days. The upper parts of the earth were wet but not flooded until sometime between the 110th to about the 140th day of the flood. Scripture says the tops of mountains were seen on the 224th day. About that time, viable seeds could begin to germinate on each continent. In this warm, wet environment seeds grew fast.
Dispersion of plants and animals after the Biblical Flood
From Noah’s family observations before and during the Flood on the ark, they determined what animals would be domesticated. and built fences or so they could not run away. Those chosen to eat, for milk, hair, feathers or pets were kept in walled enclosures. Eventually some escaped or were released such as wild horses. Those animals determined to be wild animals would defecate seeds wherever they roamed after leaving the ark. An example is bears eating berries. Animals multiplied quickly and spread out.
After being released from the ark, birds would have reached far distances in a few years defecating viable seeds along the way. They would probably be the first animals to cross land bridges. Following them would be pollinators such as bees, wasps and butterflies. By the time mammals migrated out to these regions well-established plant communities abound in the still tropical, moist conditions.
Noah took living plants, rhizomes and seeds in the ark. In moist fields the families planted fields of wheat, barley and other crops used for human and animal food. Winds forming from the collision of warm oceans and colder inlands blew seeds to new areas. This process began over and over. Orchards of fruits and rows of berry bushes were planted. Scripture tells Noah planted a vineyard soon after leaving the ark.
How did plants get to islands such as Madagascar, Australia and Hawaii?
People migrating to islands carried only a small number of plant and animal species from the original population on the main continent. Most species were ones the group admired, worshipped or needed for food or work. A few creatures would get to the islands by tag-alongs by climbing into or on the side of boats, especially rodents and insects. Other animals flew or drifted on something like a log to get to an island.
What did the earth looked like after Noah left the ark?
How the ocean looked after the flood
At the time when Noah’s ark rested on the Mountains of Ararat, ocean waters were very warm and at a uniform temperature from the bottom to the surface. But a change began taking place. As air above the land cooled and blew over the ocean, it began to cool the surface waters. This dense, cool water sunk, spreading out over the abyssal plains and ocean basins. With warm ocean water above, this created the first ocean currents. Sea level at the end of the flood would have been about 160 feet higher. It would take ocean water five hundred years to be frozen and locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. In the immediate post-Flood climate, volcanic dust would have caused very little cooling of the warm waters, as the oceans would retain heat much longer than the surface of continental lands.
Hovering volcanic ash in the atmosphere also kept the temperatures above the ocean warm. A nutrient rich ocean of zooplankton and phytoplankton filled the upper ocean and lake waters as before and during the Flood. Fish had a rich source of food with an abundance of large growths of nutrient rich zooplankton and phytoplankton circulated near the surface. Sediments from continental runoff still were in the process of settling on the continental slope and coastal deltas.
Genesis 8:1-5
“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.”
How the atmosphere looked after the flood
A light, brownish-grey tint covered the visible sky as airborne particles from numerous volcanos that erupted in the first half of the flood stayed afloat. As less light penetrated the clouds, the land cooled. High pressure over warm seas ran into cooling, low pressure air over the inner continents creating frequent storms. As wind speeds and precipitation increased over the land cool summers and mild winters formed.
Over the earth, the equatorial areas began to get hotter. An increase of water vapor plus volcanic ash created rainy periods over areas such as the Sahara Desert and where Saudi Arabia lie today. Abundant plant growth took place there. Across the middle latitudes, air masses mixed with volcanic dust cooled interior lands.
Polar areas slowly cooled over land areas. Freezing was slowed because it took years to cool the warm waters in the Arctic Ocean and water surrounding Antarctica. Wind speeds blew the strongest on earth at that time.
How the land looked after the flood
God had Noah and his family stay in the ark until land below it was dry. Much of the visible land was barren with enormous deposits of sand, silt and mud. When the wildlife was released from the ark it ran toward green patches due to seed germination and sprouting of buried roots or vegetation mats.
Cooling began over the interior of continents especially at polar areas. Freezing could occur within a week on the inner continents away from the warm oceans. High humidity and cooling would allow the snow pack to form quickly. The snow and cold winds enhanced more land cooling. High mountains began to cool in the mid and high latitudes.
Most mountains in the world consisted of sedimentary rocks containing marine fossils from mountains and hills buckled and thrust up after the 150th day of the flood. The final shape of deep and wide canyons formed from torrents of retreating flood waters through soft and loosely consolidated continental sediments. Rivers flowed through water saturated mountains instead of flowing around them. Huge volumes of water carved channels such as the Grand Canyon. Sediments settled in the coastal deltas, coastal areas and valleys on continents. Multiple terraced banks formed in river valleys. Much of this sediment would be deposited in wide valleys and vast alluvial plains like the lower Mississippi River Valley. As the waters slowed, rivers meandered and geological features like oxbow lakes formed.
In summary, how did plant and animal life spread after the flood?
Animals may have started reproducing while on the ark. Those released into the wild spread out seeking vegetation. In an area of mountainous terrain there would be adequate places for weaker animals to hide from being eaten by others. If each pair of animals from the ark doubled each year then there could have been 67 million animals on earth in 25 years. There could be over two trillion animals in 30 years minus a percentage that were killed or died from disease. Animals that reproduce quicker than once a year would be more numerous.
Lush plant foliage grew quickly and abundantly in the warm, moist environment. Plants emerged from preserved seeds that could withstand being covered by water for months floating near the top of the surface and settling late in the flood. Seeds also descended from volcanic clouds floating in winds at high altitudes, bird droppings and seeds blown from fields planted by Noah’s family. Rooted tubers and vegetative mats buried near the end of the flood would also root. Insects could have lived on floating debris such as vegetation mats. Noah’s ark may have had a little less than 16,000 different animals if God gathered them by genus or 2,000 different animals if God gathered them by families. Noah’s ark had the capacity to carry the equivalent of 500 railroad cars of animals or 120,000 sheep.