Step-by-step scientific timeline on how the Biblical flood of Noah occurred
1 year before the Biblical flood of Noah occurred
God directed Noah to build the ark in Eden. This place could not to be affected by erupting volcanoes, geysers or damaged from subterranean water chambers that would break. Most likely the ark was built to reside on higher land away from the sea shore if it took forty days to raise the ark as scripture indicates. The heathen world at that time mocked Noah and his God for building a huge boat so high up on a high hill or small mountain. Only a crazy person would do that. Wooden boats normally were built in coastal areas at that time. If the tallest mountains were 15,000 feet high (scripture does not tell) and it took 150 days for all water to cover the highest mountains on earth then water would have rose an average of 100 feet a day on land. The swiftness of this much water upon an irregular terrain coinciding with volcanic and tectonic movements would create strong currents. No breathing organism could survive except marine organisms.
Day 0- The antediluvian Earth or What Earth was like one hour before Noah’s flood?
The earth’s crust rested below a shallow sea surrounding the earth and below the land. Under the crust hot subterranean waters under pressure boiled in chambers. When eventually destroyed with the crust above it created the ocean basins we have today. Most of the earth’s water was held in those chambers the size of Australia under the sea. Below the crust and water chambers or cisterns stood the mantle. At that time is was about 300 degrees Fahrenheit hotter then than today.
Each person woke up daily to a windless, blue sky watered by a nightly mist. Hot water spewed up from geysers and warm water bubbled up from springs also watering the earth.
Day 1- What happened on the first day of the Biblical flood?
On Land
Never before had people seen rain before the flood. Today they did. It poured. The ground shook. Quakes continually rocked the earth. Super volcanoes erupted on land. Lava, black smoke and rock debris spewed into the air. Geysers of hot water and steam burst high in the sky.
In the Ocean
God directed the fountains of the deep to burst open. As the crust broke below the shallow sea, cisterns of boiling hot water, the size of Australia, spewed up from newly formed cracks. A bulge of water formed at the sea’s surface.
As the magma layer swelled below the crust, lava ejected upward into the subterranean water chambers or into the shallow seas. This emerging magma began to push on the crustal continental plates creating more quakes and tremors. Super volcanoes formed on land and at the bottom of the sea. The ground shook again and again. Volcanic plumes changed a blue sky, always seen in the past, to one a mix of stratus and nimbocumulus clouds in shades of orange, brown and gray.
What happened to human and animal life on the first day of the Biblical flood?
Geysers of hot water sprayed high into the air. Scalding water rained down from bursting subterranean chambers. People screamed as they tried to cover any visible, burning skin. Rocks and hot ash fell from erupting volcanoes. Structures collapsed and crumbled killing some. Strong winds formed among hot and cooler air. Tree branches and trunks broke off maiming or killing others. Respiratory discomforts to difficulty in breathing came from falling ash.
On the ark Noah’s family fed, watered, removed waste and maintained the health of each animal. They observed and recorded on tablets the behavior, feeding patterns and breeding of each species. Their first meals may have included bread, berries, roots, seeds and meats many dried. They had plenty of time to fix or make agricultural implements.
In the Sky
The day began as normal cloudless, blue sky day. As the events above started, volcanic debris began to fill the atmosphere. The sky darkened and the smell of ash filled the air.
Day 3
On Land
With violent erratic tremors, strong winds and saturated ground, trees continued to fall. Plants with shallow roots dislodged from the ground. Clumps of saturated grass and the ground beneath tore loose and swiftly flowed down to the sea carried by enlarged streams and rivers. Volcanic eruptions continued rising through widened cracks in the crust. Hot water, magma and debris rose above the surface, filling the sky. Clouds of ash, rocks and debris fell. Sea level rose about one-hundred feet each day flooding coastal areas. Plants and animals living in coastal areas became covered by water during the first week of the Flood.
Human and animal life
Rocks and debris from eruptions fell down on humans, killing some. Breathing became difficult as air filled with ash. Tidal waves killed many in or near coastal communities. Frightened people, animals and birds moved higher as the floodwaters approached.
In the Ocean
The bulge formed in the ocean moved outward in all directions. As each wave approached shallow water it slowed, then rapidly gained height creating one giant tidal wave unleashing its fury. Widespread flooding on land occurred over and over increasing in higher land covered each day.
The difference in hot, moist areas over the ocean and cooler less disturbed air created strong winds. Tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes formed on land and sea.
Earth’s rotation generates a large-scale circulation of oceanic currents called gyres. Gyres travel about 90-180 miles per hour. The additive effect of eruptions, gyres and daily tidal effects created additional flooding on land.
In the Sky
Thunderstorms formed where hot and cool air pockets collided. Living humans felt or saw for the first time in their life bolts of lightning, thunder roaring, strong winds and storm clouds.
Day 14
On the Land
Coastal areas flooded as sea level rose. Tides and circular ocean currents took coastal area plant and animal life out to sea. Over hours to weeks, debris churned and sunk to the bottom. Swollen rivers carried soil, rocks and dead organic material to the sea. Layers of sediment and rock settled on top of layers of dead plants and animals mixed with sediment, then covered by more layers of sediment and rock. As the layers built up some water was extruded by the weight of the compressed layers. The soft foundation of the sandy seashore and land near it broke up first and collapsed washing into the sea during the first few weeks.
Saturated ground higher up, sped the rate of soil erosion. Plants became uprooted. Continual downpours washed soft light material downhill leaving hard basement rock such as granite. Life remaining would find swollen streams and rivers brown in color.
By now the weight and volume of eroded land deposited into the ocean added to subterranean water and magma rising up caused the seas to rise. This increased flooding on higher and higher land. An example of this is in the Black Sea where seashells are found along the ancient shoreline 400 feet below the surface.
Additional land on land broke apart washing away into large subterranean caverns forcing more water up continuing flooding on higher terrain. Life living in the lowlands became covered in the second and third week.
In the Ocean
Hot magma and subterranean waters heated the seas. Larger masses of ocean crust broke below the sea at numerous places. Where cooler seas met areas of boiling water, strong currents formed. High and low tides increased both the speed of ocean currents and their direction.
Mats of ripped up foliage floated in coastal areas. Dense salt water sunk below lighter fresh water. Therefore, different kinds of fish could have survived in either layer.
In the Sky
Frequently asked is where did enough rain come for it to rain hard for forty days? The sky would be empty of rain in a few days in today’s atmosphere. But in the time of the flood it was different. Mammoth geysers shot hot water over 10,000 feet in places. Water molecules attached to airborne volcanic ash, cooled and rained down.
Day 30
On the Land
Fields of cooling magma covered land around the eruption. Land now stripped of soil. Most trees are uprooted or destroyed by now except a few in the highest places.
In the Ocean
Massive amounts of sediments, plants and dead organisms have flowed into the ocean from the antediluvian continent. From the air, turbid overflowing rivers and streams on bare land are seen.
Rocks and sediment of different colors continue to erode from the highest parts on earth. When entering the ocean, greater or lesser amounts of plant life layered with the nonliving material created different colored rock layers. The ark is floating in deep water away from the damaging effects of gyres, strong currents creating swirling undertows and tsunamis traveling over eighty miles per hour.
Humans and animals
Few would have survived at this time being tired, hungry and injured.
In the Sky
Steam condensates in the atmosphere with volcanic ash from land volcanoes causing intense global rain. The hot mantle vaporized large amounts of ocean waters. With air full of ash in some locations, living organisms would have a difficult time breathing in a darkened sky.
Day 40
On the Land
Numerous geysers caused surface sediment to wash down from the mountains. As wet substrate washed down hills aided by frequent volcanic tremors, pre-flood mountains eroded in height and volume. In the second and third months, uplands plants and animals became covered.
In the Ocean
Where volcanoes erupted rock layers tore apart breaking up the pre-Flood continent ocean floor.
Hot mantle material rose to the surface filling a gap caused by rapidly separating plates. A line of superheated steam jets spewed along the ridge system.
In the sky
Heavy rain ended at day forty. Lighter rain followed made from the condensation of mixing a warm ocean with cooler air above. This condensation connected with airborne volcanic ash and debris for added weight creating light rain for the next 110 days.
150 days (5 months)
On the Land
By now all land on Earth is flooded. The highest submerged land is about twenty feet below the ocean’s surface. All antediluvian mountains on earth have been somewhat flattened. It should be noted that if all of the Earth’s land is flattened water would cover the Earth to depth of 1.7 miles.From the 90th to the 135th day of the Flood, mountainous areas became covered. In the 135th to 150th day the water rose above all land mass. Sea life though is found in all the layers.
God at this time begins a broad scale uplift of the continents. Collisions of tectonic plates create up thrusting of mountains, folding and then hardening. Fossil bearing rocks are pushed up in ongoing fast plate tectonics. Results are fossils found on the top of the highest mountains in the world including Mt. Everest.
As water retreats on land it begins to drain back toward the sea. Fast-moving massive currents erode vast amounts of sediment that had been laid down earlier in the flood and carry it away. Earth’s great valleys are cut and new rivers formed. Examples in the United States are the Grand Canyon and the Mississippi River. Rocks not pulverized are transported miles way. One example is granite lodged between basaltic rock in the Columbia River Gorge near Portland, Oregon. The nearest granite is hundreds of miles away.
Massive erosion of sediments and dead plant material takes place as mountains are uplifted. Some travels to today’s valleys and farmland. Other sediment moved further downhill resting on the continental shelf. Sediments and dead plants ripped or eroded nearest to the shoreline sunk to the edge of the Abyssal Plains.
Rapid and deep burial among sediments trapped many marine organisms. The fossil record shows a predominance of ocean creature fossils over land creatures. Each needed to be buried deep enough not to rot, be eaten by bacteria, broken down by chemicals or eaten by predators. Large oil and natural gas deposits are formed at this time by plant material trapped under heavy layers of sediment.
As world’s continent uplift they greatly erode the antediluvian surface. Rocks not pulverized by swift water collisions are transported downhill miles away. Water rushes over large rocks and boulders in large volumes. This water flowing through sedimentary and metamorphic rock rounds the sharp edges of boulders and gravel creating smooth plantation surfaces. As softer rock eroded it left plantation surfaces in some places. The remains are usually large granite rocks some the size of small mountains. Notable examples of these flattened surfaces are: Ayers Rock, Australia; Enchanted Rock, Fredericksburg, Texas; Devils Tower, Wyoming; Steamboat Rock, Iowa; Spitzkoppe, Namib Desert, Namibia; Sugarloaf Mountain, Brazil; Stone Mountain, Georgia; Monument Valley, Utah; Karst Towers found in China and Southern Thailand. Evidence of this flattening and smoothing of rock structures are also seen in places throughout Arizona, Texas and Utah. In other places the changing path of water created natural bridge arches such as seen in Monument Valley and Arches National Park, Utah; Wrather Canyon, Arizona and Natural Bridge, Virginia.
In the Ocean
Seas are quiet for a few days. Fountains of the deep stop releasing large masses of water as crust above it has been mostly broken above. God begins the process of mountain uplift of crustal plates creating todays tall mountain chains on land and the uplift seen in the formation of the Pacific mid-ocean ridge. Subterranean waters chambers collapse. The descending water and the weight of broken crust sweeps into broken subterranean chambers. In the next few months this will create large ocean basins and deep trenches now part of the present ocean’s abyssal plains. A great example of this is the ocean trenches found parallel to the Andes Mountains in South America and parts of the Pacific Ocean parallel to the Asian continent.
Oceanic crustal plates moved continuously as mountain building is underway. Lava will continue to extrude from the magma up to the bottom of the ocean vents in new areas where the crust is broken above the magma layer. As uplift occurs slabs of cold, oceanic crust sink through the mantle much faster than the slow movement of plates seen today. Erosion does not just occur on land. As the water rushes toward the collapsed subterranean chambers some ocean surfaces are eroded quicker than others. Thousands of underwater islands or inselbergs are left as water drained.
New continental shelfs form from large sediment deposits from mountain uplift. The average shelf is 430 feet deep and extends 250 miles out from the shoreline. The longest one extends out 600 miles. Some of the widest shelfs are found along the Arctic, Bering Sea and Grand Banks Newfoundland. Numerous remains of tropical plants and animals are found in those Polar areas.
In the Air
During the early part of the flood the sun and moon shed little light due to volcanic ash and debris given off. In the next month, the continent will almost be totally covered with water. With nearly all of volcanic eruptions under the ocean and slowing, the sky begins to clear of debris.
Days 150 to 180 day
In the Ocean
The crust above partially empty subterranean waters are broken. Oceans and saturated crust sink forming the deep abyssal plains as water on land runs down and fills them. Sediments and plant life settle in layers on the continental slope and shelf. Rushing water creates sea mounts while mountain uplift forms deep submarine canyons. Waters decrease until the 10th month as written in Genesis 8:51.
Oceans begin to cool especially in polar places as the seasons we know today begin to form. As water drains inselberg or island mountains form. Thousands of inselbergs are left.
During the last half of the flood, rising continents cause flood water to flow into the sinking ocean basins. Massive, fast-moving currents erode large amounts of sediments laid down earlier in the flood and carry it away. Water travels so fast little sediment is deposited on land. When ocean currents slow they deposit their load.
Another flood evidence are guyots. Forming thousands of feet under the ocean they show a flattened top, ripped off by the force of the retreating waters into the abyss. An example is the New England Seamounts. Wrapped with limestone, dead coral and algae, lying about three thousand feet below the surface and 1,600 miles southeast of New England, they show remnants of the flood. Other remnants of the flood are shallow water sediments, some with reefs, at the edge of deep-water regions or continental slopes. Deep-water trenches and canyons formed as fast-flowing water eroded soft rock as it descended when continents stood higher above sea level. The top of sea mounts now indicates the height and approximately the extent of the antediluvian continental shelf. As the flood progressed, sediments washed off the continents forming the continental shelf.
On the land
Continents rose and spread out during the flood in the soft, wet geosynclinals sediments. Subduction of crust occurred fast enough to penetrate the mantle while parts of earth uplifted. The earth’s rock plates sunk quickly into new subterranean trenches (also called runaway subduction). Some of the continental crust rose as the ocean floor sank. As the crust rose it collided with other rising pieces of crust. As the layers either collided they either buckled or one moved over the other, both caused uplift forming mountains. Much of the stabilizing preflood landforms called cratons, remained in place throughout the flood. Cratons are pieces of hard base rock such as granite.
In the Sky
From tropical weather before the flood, the Earth’s atmosphere slowly changed to today’s seasonal patterns. Polar areas and land over the higher latitude continents began to cool. Storms occurred from condensation when warm ocean air came in contact with the cooling continents. Examples are animals living today that live in tropical areas that fed on plants in polar areas as well as in desert areas such as the Sahara Desert.
The highest mountains on today’s earth became visible as lightest sediments, flood water and rock rushed down to the ocean basin. During mountain uplift and water runoff, water begins to collect in low areas forming lakes. Torrents of floodwater eroded land forming canyons, new rivers, and any remaining building or temple parts carried to sea. Examples are the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.
Seeds and roots that survived the flood began to germinate or take root on muddy land. Some fish that become trapped or flung about by changing ocean currents die with seeds in their digestive system. If deposited on the highest layer they could germinate after rotting.
Newly formed mountain chains create new weather patterns.
Psalm 104:6-9, 108:6 Genesis 7:19-20, Genesis 6:9-17 Note: 15 cubits = 22feet
Day 370
In the Ocean
A warm ocean and cooler continental lands create periods of rain throughout the seasons. The ice age begins over the northern and southern Polar areas and cold inner areas of the northern and southern continents.
Humans
Noah and his family leave the ark. After the flood families, probably stayed some distance away from the ocean fearing the earth would flood again. Decades later, the abundant availability of foods from the sea and its use for commerce enticed people back to coastal areas.
