![[Toolbar]](/pix/ribbon.gif){kind=small}
xx307@po.cwru.edu -- About this server -- Copyright 1994-2001 CWRU -- Unauthorized use prohibited
Posted 10-9-00
CLEVELAND -- Explorer Robert Ballard is best known around the world for discovering the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, but his latest exploration in the Black Sea provides promising evidence to support the Great Flood theory of Noah and his ark. Ballard will talk about his latest underwater adventure and other explorations at 2:30 p.m. Monday, October 16 in Strosacker Auditorium at Case Western Reserve University. The event, sponsored by CWRU's Center for Science and Mathematics Education, is free and open to the public.
While on a National Geographic expedition that took him more than 300 feet beneath the surface of the Black Sea and a dozen miles off the coast of Turkey, Ballard found well-preserved artifacts of wooden beams and stone tools on the sea's floor.
The area became a prime target for analyzing the Great Flood theory. For years, scientists have theorized that 7,000 years ago the Black Sea was a fresh water lake until the Mediterranean Sea spilled over its banks and flowed into this smaller body of water through the Bosporus Strait to widen the lake by as much as a mile a day.
Ballard, a marine geologist, also is president of the Institute for Exploration in Mystic, Connecticut and serves as an scientist-in-residence for National Geographic. His next expedition is to Antarctica to search for Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance, which crashed during one of his expeditions to reach the South Pole.
He has been involved with CWRU for the past three years through his JASON Project, a science education program for school children. CWRU is one of four Ohio host sites for the interdisciplinary science adventure program. CWRU's Center for Science and Mathematics Education is currently enrolling and training teachers in the JASON curriculum for this year's adventure, "JASON XII: Hawaii -- A Living Laboratory."
Each year's specialized curriculum culminates in an interactive broadcast using Super Bowl television technology to connect Ballard and researchers from remote locations to local school children. This year, CWRU's Ford Auditorium will be the site for 55, hour-long broadcasts from Hawaii January 29 through February 9.
Ballard has gone on more than 100 deep-sea expeditions, using submersibles Alvin, Archimedes, Trieste II, Turtle, Ben Franklin, Cyana, and NR-1. His list of finds includes some of the most well-known ships in modern history -- the Bismarck, 11 warships from the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, the U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown, and exploration of the luxury liner Lusitania.
He has found some of the oldest ships, including two ancient Phoenician ships off the coast of Israel. He also discovered the structures and artifacts of other sunken ships along an ancient Mediterranean trading route. His underwater descents resulted in the first discovery of polymetallic sulfides, the warm water springs and animal communities in the Galapagos Rift, and high temperature "black smokers."
For information about Ballard's visit or the JASON Project, call 216-368-5075.