GEOLOGICAL TRACES OF THE GLOBAL FLOOD

Monk Bartholomew (Chernyshev)

Holy Trinity Ipatievsky monastery of the Kostroma diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kostroma, Russia

Email: 9581148@list.ru

ORCID: 0009-0008-4383-7288

Issue: № 4 (32), 2025

Pages: 11

Annotation

In the history of our planet, the biblical event of the World Flood is marked by specific deposits. The deposits under consideration can be found in the European part of Russia, Iran, Mongolia, China, the republics of Central Asia, and are present in the USA and Argentina. These are dusty clay soils, called loess in the south of Russia by the German- language term, as well as similar deposits of the Non-C hernozem zone of Russia, called cover deposits. They have the features of sediments from a single huge ocean-a flood. We will list these features below. Firstly, both loess and cover sediments are not layered. It indicates the origin of the entire stratum of these sediments in one act of the sedimentary process, or, simply put, indicates the deposition of the entire multi- meter layer at a time from the water of one deep basin. Secondly, in the bottom of the sediments under consideration, there is material from the underlying older sediments, which indicates the erosion of its bottom by water flows, from which a flood ocean was formed in a short time. At an early stage of its temporary existence, the loess and their northern counterpart settled on earth. Thirdly, inside the layer, there is a bottom-up decrease in the size of soil particles from small, barely visible to the naked eye to the smallest ones, invisible even through an optical microscope, distinguishable only with magnification available to an electron microscope. Such differentiation indicates the primary deposition of larger and therefore heavier particles from a single solution and the covered deposition of the smallest particles, which were held in suspension by colloidal forces during a single and short-term act of formation of a multi- meter layer of loess or cover loam. Fourthly, the very name "cover deposits" generally recognized in Russia indicates their occurrence on the earth's surface in the form of a cover quite similar to the snow cover of the northern winter. Just as snow from the atmospheric ocean covers everything on earth, so the sediments of the flood ocean formed a continuous layer on all the more ancient sediments, including the moraines of the continental glaciations of Europe and the deposits of glacial meltwater. This shows that the flood took place after the completion of the continental glaciations. Just as snowfall occurs somewhere, not everywhere, so the dusty-clay sediment of the flood did not form everywhere, but in regions where previously accumulated dusty-clay deposits were on the earth's surface, which could be lifted by water flows. In the Eastern European or Russian plain, sandy-d usty-clay material was formed in excess during continental glaciations and, consequently, was stored by the time of the flood. So, the presence of flood sediments on different continents, their covering shape over various older sediments, and other signs of loess and cover sediments mentioned here indicate that the flood covered a number of continents. Geological data do not allow us to estimate the time of formation of flood deposits in years, due to the unreliability of the method of determining the absolute age of geological objects. But the discovery of human footprints in the form of fragments of pottery and stone tools under yellow sandy-clay deposits between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers indicates that the flood took place after the creation of man by God. Geological data suggest that the flood occurred in recent geological times, after the continental glaciations of Europe, after the formation of the modern river network of the Russian Plain. The flood was accompanied by catastrophic geological processes. A forty-day rainstorm and widespread rising water had an impact on the surface and the bowels of the earth's crust. Mud-stone flows occurred on the surface — mudslides and landslides, which demolished people's homes located in the valleys that had not yet been flooded. In seismically active regions, the load from the weight of ocean water caused earthquakes. There are traces of strong earthquakes in the loess of China and the western Black Sea region. In the loess there are remains of plants and animals, in particular, shells of mollusks. These are the remains of only continental flora and fauna. It follows that marine life did not enter the waters of the flood ocean. This fact indicates that the flood ocean was not connected with the ocean and seas. There is no evidence in the Bible about the rise of water levels in the ocean and seas simultaneously with the flooding of the earth, they are not in the geological chronicle. On the contrary, environmental considerations tend to suggest that the oceanic expanses were miraculously spared from rising water. The Prophet Moses and the Church fathers write only about the flooding of the earth. It must be assumed that God's omnipotence held back the wall of water on the coasts, just as it held back the walls of water, protecting the passage for Jews in the Red Sea.

Keywords

Book of Genesis, World Flood, geology, geological deposits, diluvium, cover deposits, loess,

For citation

Monk Bartholomew (Chernyshev). Geological traces of the Global Flood // Ipatievsky vestnik. 2025. № 4. Р. 11–33 (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.24412/2309– 5164–2025–4–11–33