Black Sea Used to Be Freshwater Lake, Experienced Deluge - Scientists

Novinite -

The Black Sea used to be a freshwater lake turned into a salt-water sea, Columbia University Professor William Ryan announced in Bulgaria.

Ryan participated in a scientific expedition headed by Prof. Petko Dimitrov, the director of the Underwater Archaeology unit of the Oceanology Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which started to explore the ancient coastline of the Black Sea on June 27, 2011.

The 18-member team of scientists sailed 80 miles along the Bulgarian coast to Turkey in the Akademik ship of the Oceanology Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Scientists.

According to Ryan, the expedition has found evidence that in the past the Black Sea experienced a sudden influx of salted water, a cataclysm that he described as an "environmental catastrophe", as cited by BTA, and that changed tremendously the environment of the Black Sea.

Samples that the scientists extracted from the Black Sea bottom indicate that layers of sand sealed with slime. A total of 27 drillings were made during the expedition, which funded by Bulgarian Scientific Research Fund.

The scientists who took part in the expedition believe that there was an abrupt change in the fauna of the Black Sea basin. Ryan pointed out that after the last Ice Age, the water from glaciers flew into the Black Sea, the Caspian and the Aral Sea.

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