Re: Ice age, plate tectonics and PIE

For a good summary of the current status of the Black Sea question,
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/bseaflod.htm
and follow the link to gsajournals. That gives the illustrations to
the article I mentioned (in GSA Today, not Geology as I
misremembered). Figure 2 in particular, although it may take a
while to figure out, is very informative. It suggests what is
essentially Torsten's scenario below, although only fairly
uniformitarian processes rather than catastrophic glacial collapse
need be involved.
That figure also gives a worldwide sealevel curve that indicates
~40m rise in the last 8 ka. I was simply wrong when I said Holocene
rise was only matter of single meters.
Dan
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel J. Milton"

<dmilt1896@...>

> wrote:
> > The one seriously proposed shoreline change that might have

had

> > a significant effect on Indo-European origins is the one

proposed

> in
> > Pitman et al.'s "Noah's Flood" book, where the Mediterranean

broke

> > through the straits and flooded a supposed sub-sealevel

freshwater

> > predecessor of the Black Sea (I believe someone brought this up

on

> > Cybalist a while ago). However, there was a paper by a Turkish
> > group in the journal Geology last year (I can check the ref. if
> > anyone wants it) that demolished the theory. Essentially, they
> > demonstrated (to my satisfaction at least) that through the time
> > when Pitman would have a mighty cataract pouring northward,
> > sediments in the Sea of Marmara were quietly prograding

southward.

>
> That's strange, since that's the Old Greek version too (by I

forgot

> whom). How about this scenario:
>
> 1) The Black Sea is a melt water lake with a level above that of

the

> oceans, in the vicinity of several inland glaciers, connected to

the

> Oceans by a river flowing south and west in what is now the

Bosporus

> and Dardanelles.
>
> 2) Catastrophic collapse of glaciers overfills Black Sea, causing

it

> to spill huge volumes of water though the river to the Ocean.
>
> 3) This erodes the bottom of the river to below sea level.
>
> 4) After the catastrophic outflow, sea water passes though the
> expanded channel (= present Bosporus, Dardanelles).
>
> Viola!
>
> Torsten