Archaeologists have theorize many ancientflood eventsmight have been the inspiration for the chronicle of Noah . Few , however , would have matched the speed and size of a tsunami that hit the area that is now northern Israel between 9,910 and 9,290 years ago , perhaps searing itself into the corporate memory of those who endure .
The eastern Mediterranean region is tragically prostrate to tsunami - inducing temblor and submarine landslip . In recent years , there is grounds of minor tsunami events everydecade or so . Deposits from enceinte waves have been found at a pace of around one every 160 years since Roman times . Typically , these have been find to travel around 300 meters ( 1,000 pes ) inland in low - lie coastal areas .
Dr Gilad Shtienbergof the University of California San Diego is hit the books sediment cores pile up at Tel Dor , south of Haifa . “ Our project focalise on reconstructing ancient climate and environmental change over the past 12,000 years along the Israeli coast , ” Shteinberg said in astatement .
The last ice age finished around the scratch of the period Shtienberg is studying , so sea levels were still rising as glaciers catch up with the young warmth . therefore , the shoreline was a long way of life from where it lies now .
InPLoS ONEShtienberg and co - authors judge the shell and marine sand they found at Dor were gather up between 1.5 and 3.5 klick ( 0.9 - 2.2 naut mi ) away , at what was then the coast , in what was then a fresh water wetland , suggest something on a very different scale . The authors calculate it must have been between 16 and 40 metre ( 50 - 130 feet ) high at the coast .
ineluctably , many coastal villages – and even those some way inland – must have been wiped out to the point we have no record of them . Even villages on higher ground may have been abandoned if the land they depended on was inundated . On the other mitt , we have abundant grounds of the area ’s settlement from at least 8,000 years ago .
“ We never dreamed of finding evidence of a prehistorical tsunami in Israel , ” Shtienberg added . “ When we turn out the cores heart-to-heart in San Diego and start up control a nautical shell level embedded in the teetotal Neolithic landscape , we know we hit the jackpot . "
Stalactites in a cave on the nearby Carmel ridge record grounds of a major earthquake around 10,000 years ago . Seafloor map off Israel ’s seacoast reveal grounds of two landslides orotund enough to trigger tsunamis of this musical scale , but their timing is strange – although one estimation aim them within the last 17,000 years .
The newspaper does not speculate on the hypothesis survivors ’ fib of such an epic result might have been handed down over millenary before their conversion into the Biblical flood . However , we now have intercourse Indigenous multitude in Australia kept animated computer memory ofrising seasandvolcanic eruptionsover even greater spans of time .
