Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood

I want to revisit radiocarbon years.If articles written for laypeople indescriminately mix radiocarbon and calendar years without making clear which is which, then rampant confusion can result, and according to Scientific American, this occasionally happens:

The distinction between radiocarbon years and calendar years is important. A report earlier this year described a 13,000-year-old skeleton found in California and compared it to 12,500-year-old Monte Verde, without mentioning that the former date was in calendar years and the latter, radiocarbon years. Some readers understandably thought that the California skeleton was older than the campsite at Monte Verde. But in calendar years, Monte Verde is 14,700 years old. (Scientific American, September, 2000, Error – Scientific American - it includes a conversion table)

When writing your book I assume you didn't just throw up your hands and say, "Radiocarbon years, calendar years, who knows?" You took the time to investigate and you compared calendar years to calendar years or radiocarbon years to radiocarbon years, and you therefore know that by the most recent estimates you have a gap of some thousands of years between the end of the ice age and the estimate for the Black Sea flood postulated by Ryan and Pitman.

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wmscott writes:
Dates from scientific dating methods are approximate, frequently given with a error range of plus or minus so many years with a 90% estimate that the time the event actually occurred at falls inside of that range. This is why the month or the day of the week that the event happened on is not also given, the dating systems are not that precise. Even with a good date with a 90% reliability, it is still acknowledged there is an estimated 10% chance that the date is in error, and that is not even allowing for other errors such as contamination.

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Experimental error is understood, but three points. First, radiocarbon researchers have not been sitting on their hands since Gwen Schultz wrote Ice Age Lost in 1974, which seems to be where your impressions of the efficacy of radiocarbon dating originates. If you visit The Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit website and click on Radiocarbon in the sidebar you'll read about the tight calibration back 11,000 years that's been achieved using tree ring data.Second, radiocarbon error is coming to be reported in the manner you describe, ie, a range with a confidence factor, though the Oxford unit provides a 95% value, not 90%. But you would be wrong to conclude that there's a 5% chance dates are off by the thousands of years required for your theory that the Black Sea flood was caused by the end of the Wisconsian ice age.Three, the confidence factor increases dramatically as you make more measurements, and the number of dated samples relevant to the end of the last ice age must be very large by now. While researching this post I found no mention of a trend toward lower dates.Your Gwen Shultz quote is an honest assessment of the uncertainty of dating techniques in 1974, but while it's a caution to be conservative she's optimistic about the future because she goes on to say, "It can be foreseen, though, that as absolute-dating techniques are perfected they will reveal enlightening and startling results."And this is just what has happened.You also cut her short with your quote, "Will the trend someday change, shrinking the tape measure, requiring us to shorten our time scale?" While she bemoans the search for antiquity being reduced to a contest to find the oldest, she balances her comments by continuing, "Or are we in for still more staggering surprises about the antiquity of our world and the age of its people?"--Percy

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[This message has been edited by Percipient, 01-12-2002]

I'm moving a copy of this thread to The Great Debate forum.--Percy

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Each step is supported by quotes from geology books with evidence from around the world showing that these events actually happened. The chapter on Looking at the Numbers is really more for the geologists than the average reader, has a lot of deep geology about how the flood affected the earth.

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I wonder if the author references actual scientific literature as well as books.

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A new geology theory is presented called Ice Age Flexing that reveals how the deluge and the comings and goings of the earlier ice ages has affected the earth.

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So, when is this "new scientific theory" going to be appearing in any professional Geology journals, or in the "uberjournals", "Science" and "Nature"? If it is, indeed, scientific, then you should have no trouble getting it published.

First, in my book in my book I highly favor the more recent biblical date for the flood, but I leave open the possibility it occurred at the earlier scientifically dated time for the end of the ice age. I was very impressed that you checked my quote from Ice Age Lost, very good work. The purpose of the quote was to show the unreliability of dating systems used in dating recent geologic events, that they are not fixed in time as well as many think. As for cutting her short, I could say you did the same, she also went on to quote a paper on dating that said "the possibility that all methods used today are wrong must be acknowledged.." I just found that statement a bit too extreme even if it maybe some day proved true. The reason I quoted Gwen Schultz is because she is so quotable, she comes out and says things other infer over several pages of technical text. The essence of what she said is repeated even today by some scientists today, despite our improved dating methods. Basically anything man can do, man can screw up. A point to remember is what the dating of the Black Sea flooding is based on. A single set of bottom cores tested at one lab. Assuming test accuracy, there is still the old carbon problem. The oceans contain more carbon 12 than land based things. Dating of marine organics requires an adjustment for this. The freshwater shells used to date the Black Sea flood were found below marine sediments. Freshwater doesn't require the marine adjustment, but were the shells affected by marine water or not? If the mud had sealed them off from the sea water they didn't, but was there a slow leaking of marine water into the freshwater area, or was that was assumed but it didn't happen. The biggest problem with dating is contamination, and considering freshwater shells under marine sediments, the resulting dates could easily be off by a large measure.
On the 10% or 5% error ranges, the range is in the shape of a bell curve. If the date is off it is probably just out side the given range, the curve drops off to each side but does extent to both sides of the chart. The possibility the given date could be at ether extreme is next to zero, but not zero. A single date could be off by very large amounts, while a large group of dates is less likely to be in error. Unless of course there is a basic error in the dating system itself such as miscalibration of the system used to measure the age of things.
Any date out side of our historical records, and many inside of it, needs to be taken as approximate. It is misleading to refer to any non-historical date in calendar years, even tree ring dates can be in error. Dates need to be weighted or valued according to the evidence supporting them. they should never be taken blindly.
Considering these facts, and the fact that the flooding of the Black Sea is much better understood in connection with a sudden rise in sea level at the end of the ice age, it makes overwhelming logical sense that the two events are connected and the pattern of evidence indicates that they were.

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wmscott writes:
A point to remember is what the dating of the Black Sea flooding is based on. A single set of bottom cores tested at one lab.

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A quick scan of Ryan and Pitman's book reveals that Glenn Jones of Woods Hole also dated a set of cores (Radiocarbon Chronology of Black Sea Sediments, Deep Sea Research 41, no. 3, 1994, 531-557), and his dates jived with Ryan's. There's probably other corroborating evidence in the book, but I only looked long enough to falsify your claim that the dates were based on a "single set of bottom cores tested at one lab."

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Basically anything man can do, man can screw up.

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The problem with this argument as the primary rationale for older dates is that you are as prone to human foibles as everyone else on the planet. This argument applies as much to you as the scientists with whom you disagree, even more so since you're a laymen.I'm not claiming the Ryan/Pitman dates are perfect and inviolate, but neither were they pulled out of thin air. To challenge these dates you must address their specific evidence, not just say, "Well, nobody's perfect, they could be wrong." In other words, they have evidence, you don't. You even say as much:

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Dates need to be weighted or valued according to the evidence supporting them. they should never be taken blindly.

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About carbon reservoir adjustments you say:

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Assuming test accuracy, there is still the old carbon problem. The oceans contain more carbon 12 than land based things. Dating of marine organics requires an adjustment for this. The freshwater shells used to date the Black Sea flood were found below marine sediments. Freshwater doesn't require the marine adjustment, but were the shells affected by marine water or not? If the mud had sealed them off from the sea water they didn't, but was there a slow leaking of marine water into the freshwater area, or was that was assumed but it didn't happen. The biggest problem with dating is contamination, and considering freshwater shells under marine sediments, the resulting dates could easily be off by a large measure.

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Unadjusted dating of marine sediments yields older dates, so if the Ryan/Pitman samples were contaminated from the higher marine levels their dates would be too old, not too young. Adjusting for possible contamination would make the Ryan/Pitman dates younger, not older, causing yet a greater discrepancy with the end of the last ice age.Other evidence you've offered so far is whale bones in Michigan and a species of arctic seal in the Caspian Sea. You need a broad pattern of corroborating evidence for a world-wide flood only 10,000 years ago, not just a couple anomalies on opposite sides of the globe. I assume your book goes into much more detail, but can you lay out a brief overview of your evidence?--Percy

My statement on the single set of cores was based on the information in the book "Noah's Flood; The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event that Changed History" by William Ryan & Walter Pitman. It has been a while since I read this book, but in checking the index I could find references to only a single set of cores dated at one lab. (If your reference to other dates on other cores was from this book, could you please give the page number since I couldn't find it.) Additional cores may also have been taken since this book was written. Actually I like the date for the Black Sea flooding since it is closer to the biblical date for the flood. It is the dates for the end of the Ice Age I would like to see moved up, but we are talking about a large number of dates on a large number of items. About the only way such an error could be possible is as we have mentioned, the effects of the old carbon levels in sea water. Perhaps an unaccounted for dunking in sea water has given Ice Age materials an appearance of being a bit older than they really are. The differences in dates as to when events took place is the biggest difference between biblical history and secular history. Since biblical history is based on eyewitnesses and the secular is based on indirect methods, I favor the biblical dates.
Yes, I have much more information in the book. It would be hard to give a quick over look since that is what the book does. I would have to post several chapters worth of stuff. But in short, some of the other things supporting a flood are the presence of ice rafted rocks in areas the glaciers didn't reach such as the Driftless area in SW Wisconsin. This area adjoins the Mississippi river, a number of high valleys and hills along this river have rocks left by floating ice. As the sea level rose, the river backed up and rock bearing ice drifted into flooded valleys and over the hills. The presence of sea life in inland bodies of water is also evidence of a former connection with the sea. We have the Pleistocene extinction which is a mystery and occurred in a pattern consistent with the cause being a global flood. We have the disappearance of Ice Age people and the sudden change since in the archeological record. We also have a wide range of geological evidence supporting a recent sudden end of the ice age that resulted in large scale elevation changes around the world. As shown by greatly elevated shorelines of recent geological age. There is also of course the marine diatoms here in Wisconsin deposited in an event that dropped large ice rafted boulders at fairly high elevations far from any sea. These things and many others are part of an over all pattern. If viewed in isolation, each event is a bit of an anomaly, but not too troubling if it were just a case of there only being one anomaly. However once they are connected together we begin to see that they are each part of a much larger event.

"The differences in dates as to when events took place is the biggest difference between biblical history and secular history. Since biblical history is based on eyewitnesses and the secular is based on indirect methods, I favor the biblical dates."A usual creationist argument but unfortunately,a very flawed one because it assumes the innerant nature of the Bible and then uses that assumption as proof that the Bible is innerant,a phenomenon commonly refered to as circular reasoning. Also,there is no eye witness account of Noah or Adam's time,since the Bible itself began to be writen 1700 BC,which means the writers lived almost 400 years after Noah's supposed death and almost 2000 years after the time of Adam.

I'm a bit tied up and can perhaps respond to the main body of your post another time, but the account of Jones noticing his dates agreed with Ryan's can be found at the top of page 149.--Percy

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Originally posted by wmscott:
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But in short, some of the other things supporting a flood are the presence of ice rafted rocks in areas the glaciers didn't reach such as the Driftless area in SW Wisconsin. This area adjoins the Mississippi river, a number of high valleys and hills along this river have rocks left by floating ice. As the sea level rose, the river backed up and rock bearing ice drifted into flooded valleys and over the hills.

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And this is evidence for a global flood? I don't believe that you have eliminated the possibility of local epeiric seas on the continent. We know this happened in the Cretaceous Period as well. Was that another global flood? Tell us exactly the elevations where these glacial erratics have been found and then show us how the same waters covered land masses thousands of feet in elevation. Then you might have something.

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The presence of sea life in inland bodies of water is also evidence of a former connection with the sea.

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A connection with the sea is far from a global flood. Is the Baltic Sea a global flood, also?

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We have the Pleistocene extinction which is a mystery and occurred in a pattern consistent with the cause being a global flood.

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Another assertion. What is the evidence of this and how does it rule out other causes such as climatic change?

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We have the disappearance of Ice Age people and the sudden change since in the archeological record.

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Who are the ice age people? Couldn't this have to do with the retreat of continental ice caps without any flood? You have not shown this.

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We also have a wide range of geological evidence supporting a recent sudden end of the ice age that resulted in large scale elevation changes around the world. As shown by greatly elevated shorelines of recent geological age.

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Prove to us that you are not confusing glacial lake shorelines with marine shorelines. What is "greatly elevated?" I have seen the stranded beach deposits from glacial lake Missoula. Are these part of your flood? They occurred at about the same time as your break up of the continental ice sheet. Show me wave-cut marine terraces in Denver and then we will have something to talk about. I think you have spent too much time in the flatlands.

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There is also of course the marine diatoms here in Wisconsin deposited in an event that dropped large ice rafted boulders at fairly high elevations far from any sea.

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What are fairly high elevations? Can you show is that the diatoms were not wind blown?

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These things and many others are part of an over all pattern. If viewed in isolation, each event is a bit of an anomaly, but not too troubling if it were just a case of there only being one anomaly. However once they are connected together we begin to see that they are each part of a much larger event.

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I think you need to connect together with a few more facts rather than selecting the ones that you want to use. Your data is quite provincial. If you are trying to convince us to buy your book, you have a long way to go.

Thank you Percipient, I stand corrected then, it was two sets of cores rather than one. Still two dates is not that much to hang your hat on. We have been discussing the evidence against the two events happening at the same time, but perhaps we should consider the evidence that shows they are connected.
First the evidence from the Black Sea is that it once was a fresh water lake at a much lower elevation, one main shore line with beach dunes, etc., fresh water shells right up to the change and no salt deposits or other marine or indications of brine conditions. The theory for this is that the Bosporus straits became blocked by landslides or earthquakes. The sea level rose at the end of the ice age but the earthen dam held out the sea for a few thousand years and then collapsed suddenly flooding the Black Sea area. This chain of events is impossible for the following reasons. One shoreline, with its outlet blocked the lake did not flood even in the post ice age rainy period, and the level of the lake remained stable which would be very unusual for an evaporative lake.. No salt deposits, with no outlet for several thousand years all the water had to leave by evaporation which would have turned the lake into a salt lake. Fresh water shells up till the event, if the lake had been isolated, the salt build up would have killed off the fresh water shells long before the flooding event. Now let's consider what the chain of events would have been if these events where connected.
The ice sheets collapse into the sea raising the sea level suddenly, which causes the level of the Med to rise above the level of the Black Sea area, the water flow in the river draining the area is reversed. As the sea level continues to rise, the in rushing flow gets greater and greater. The in rushing sea water creates the abrupt change found here and carries in marine life. This flooding doesn't stop here but continues to rise higher flooding the Caspian Sea was well shown by the presence of Med sea life being found there as well, which would require a rise in sea level above what we have today since today the Caspian Sea is land locked and its level today is actually below sea level.
By connecting these two events the problems are solved and the chain of events makes much better sense. It is for these overwhelming reasons I believe these two events happened at the same time. It is easier to believe we have some problems in our dating systems than to believe they happened several thousands of years apart. Perhaps in time better dates will be arrived at and it will be recognized that these events did indeed happen together.For other quiestions on raised shorelines, the ones I am referring to are found along sea coasts, which eliminates the possibility of them being formed by local flooding. The Diatoms found in Wisconsin were found at an elevation of 1000 Ft. The drop stones in SW Wisconsin are also found at elevations of about 1000 Ft also. On the Pleistocene extinction, I would suggest you do a little research into some of the accepted causes and you will see what I mean about it being a mystery.

wmscott, I'm a little vague on a few things. You state:

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The ice sheets collapse into the sea raising the sea level suddenly, which causes the level of the Med to rise above the level of the Black Sea area, the water flow in the river draining the area is reversed.

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How do the ice sheets "collapse into the sea?" Whenever I pour water over ice, the cubes just lift of the bottom of the glass. Where do these ice sheets go? What is the gradient that causes them to move?...

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For other quiestions on raised shorelines, the ones I am referring to are found along sea coasts, which eliminates the possibility of them being formed by local flooding.

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Exactly my point. Why do we not find marine terraces farther inland, at higher elevations?

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The Diatoms found in Wisconsin were found at an elevation of 1000 Ft. The drop stones in SW Wisconsin are also found at elevations of about 1000 Ft also. [quote] Isn't it funny that the elevations are concordant? Could it be that this was the highest level that the oceans reached? Sorry, not global yet!

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[quote]On the Pleistocene extinction, I would suggest you do a little research into some of the accepted causes and you will see what I mean about it being a mystery.

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All I know is that some people say it was a climatic change. No word on a flood.

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wmscott writes:
Still two dates is not that much to hang your hat on.

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You initially claimed there was only one date, but when I found another you changed your claim to two. If I find another will you change your claim to three? Are you sure you've researched this area?Even if there were only two dates, that is two more than you have.The accepted date for the end of the last ice age is the one most consistent with the evidence, and there's a lot of it. The anomalous cases you cite may indeed be clues that the date is wrong, but if that is what you believe then your task should be to uncover a broad supporting pattern of evidence as well as explanations for why the larger body of contrary evidence is wrong. You shouldn't be urging others to accept a theory insufficiently supported by evidence.There is much evidence that at the end of the last ice age "great lakes" formed at the margin of the melting polar ice sheets and drained to form more "great lakes" elsewhere, such as the Black Sea. These "great lakes" are so well established that they have names, like those listed on page 156 of the Ryan/Pitman book: Upper Dnieper, Upper Volga, Dvina-Pechora, Tungusta, Pur and Mansi. If there can be explicit evidence of these "great lakes" then there can be just as explicit evidence that these lakes at one time were so large they formed a continuous world-wide inundation.

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The theory for this is that the Bosporus straits became blocked by landslides or earthquakes. The sea level rose at the end of the ice age but the earthen dam held out the sea for a few thousand years and then collapsed suddenly flooding the Black Sea area.

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What you describe is not the accepted theory. The fresh water Black Sea was formed at the end of the last ice age by water draining from the Eurasian ice sheet, and the Black Sea drained into the Mediterranean. As the ice age came to an end and the supply of meltwater feeding the Black Sea diminished, evaporation eventually exceeded the supply from incoming rivers and the Black Sea's level dropped below that of the Mediterranean. It's a safe bet there were many landslides and earthquakes in this geologically active region, but that isn't what separated the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. Certainly general uplift could have been a factor, though I found no mention of that possibility in my research.The theory you describe is not the accepted theory, and so your rebuttal isn't relevant.

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No salt deposits, with no outlet for several thousand years all the water had to leave by evaporation which would have turned the lake into a salt lake.

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The amount of salt added by rivers and streams is minute and takes millions of years to build up, not a mere few thousand. The rest of your argument is based on this incorrect assumption and so needn't be addressed.

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This flooding doesn't stop here but continues to rise higher flooding the Caspian Sea was well shown by the presence of Med sea life being found there as well, which would require a rise in sea level above what we have today since today the Caspian Sea is land locked and its level today is actually below sea level.

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When the Mediterranean Sea formed by flooding through Gibraltar millions of years ago, the land region between the Caspian and the Mediterranean was lower in elevation and they formed a single sea. Later Uplift separated them. Probably measurements of genetic distance between related organisms in the two seas would confirm this.

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By connecting these two events the problems are solved and the chain of events makes much better sense.

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Typically, theories become accepted when they explain more, not less, than existing theory. Your ideas might address some of the problems that interest you, but they create tons more problems in their wake, problems that are already neatly addressed by existing theory.

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The Diatoms found in Wisconsin were found at an elevation of 1000 Ft. The drop stones in SW Wisconsin are also found at elevations of about 1000 Ft also.

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These aren't mysteries - this region was covered by meltwater lakes at the end of the last ice age. You need evidence of a global inundation.

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We have the Pleistocene extinction which is a mystery and occurred in a pattern consistent with the cause being a global flood...On the Pleistocene extinction, I would suggest you do a little research into some of the accepted causes and you will see what I mean about it being a mystery.

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The extinction of many large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene has a few possible explanations, among them over-hunting by ancient man and too-rapid climate change. How is a global flood an acceptable explanation?--Percy

wmscott:There's actually one rather large problem with your entire premise: you have the dates for the Pleistocene extinctions wrong. In fact, there were a series of extinctions tending from about 100,000-50,000 ya (Africa), ~40,000 ya (Australia), to ~12,000-11,000 ya (North America), to ~10,000-8,000 ya (South/Central America).A couple of curiosities about these extinctions that are not consistent with a global catastrophe such as a noachian-style flood:
1. Only large mammals were eliminated, unlike all other mass extinctions. Smaller mammals were unaffected.
2. There is no indication of disturbance among benthic (marine) organisms.
3. There was no substantial loss of plant species diversity, which argues against a global catastrophe. There was change in species related to the advance and retreat of the ice sheets, as well as the impact on the paleoecology due to the loss of so many large herbivores, but no indication of sudden, catastrophic extinction.A global flood can not be viewed as consistent with the Pleistocene extinctions.

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[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 01-21-2002]

wmscott:I have a couple of questions concerning your discovery of marine diatoms in Wisconsin.1. Could you please provide the dating methodology you used to determine the age of the rocks in which you discovered these diatoms? Since Wisconsin was the site of a shallow ocean during the Silurian, microfossils of marine diatoms would be expected.2. Since you have determined that these are "marine" diatoms, could you please provide species identification? Fresh-water diatoms are extremely common worldwide. In Wisconsin, for example, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources uses them as a water quality indicator species.Thanks for your clarification.

For Quetzal, good questions. I deal with the Pleistocene extinction dates in my book. A number of Ice Age animals appear to have died off before the end of the Ice Age, but we see the same apparent pattern with the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now we know that there was a major sudden extinction event associated with the demise of the dinosaurs, some of them may have died off before or it may just appear that way in the fossil record. It was similar with the Pleistocene extinctions, some of the animals may have or may not have died off before hand. Finding fossils is a rare event, there are many gaps in representation. It is very possible that a number of animals believed to have died off before the extinction event actually lived up to it. The cause of these extinctions is unknown, there are three theories in science that attempt to explain this extinction event, but none of them is very good which is why there are three of them. The pattern of extinction at the end of the ice age is consistent with a sudden rise in global sea level. Small animals would stand a much better chance of surviving a flood by rafting than would large animals. Small animals are more numerous giving better odds of having a surviving viable population. Areas with lower elevations such as Australia had higher extinction rates. The area where larger animals did survive is in harmony with the biblical story of an ark. The area where the ark was has the lowest level of extinction. In fact the patterns are just the opposite of what is expected from the currently believed causes of over hunting and climate change. The super virus theory is too far fetched and is basically impossible to prove or disprove, not doesn't fit the pattern of survival ether, why should smaller animals be more immune when they have a denser population more suited for disease transmission than the larger animals. A flood event is not that damaging to plants, plant extinctions are not to be expected. A major disturbance in marine organisms is not to be expected ether, since the change was not that great for them. There has found to be a freshwater spike in gulf sediments, and the drop stones found on the Atlantic floor point towards a sudden movement of glacial melt water and ice into the sea which would have greatly raised sea levels.On the marine diatoms found here in Wisconsin. They are not found in "rocks" but in top soil in a thin layer. They are dated by species type, they are recent species which were found in our oceans at the end of the ice age and are still living in the seas today. Some of the marine species I have found include, Asterolampra Marylandica, Pseudoguinardia recta, Grammatophora Marina, Thalassionema Nitzhioldes, Asterionella Japponica and others.
For Percipient. Yes I have, for the book, but not that well when writing posts. I will go with the evidence as I must, facts are facts, I may not agree with the results but I certainly try to make sense of them. I believe dating is useful, but sometimes is off by larger amounts than many think. I feel that I have put forward the broad supporting pattern of evidence supporting my view in my book. I unfortunately lack the resources to do carbon dating myself, so I am not in a position to correct the apparent errors in some dates. I would like to see many things from the end of the ice age redated using the newer AMS system and see if they come up with dates closer to the one the system has given for the Black Sea flooding.On the lakes having shorelines and the flood having none, where would the shoreline be of a total global flood? The flood was brief enough that few shorelines would have formed, for it takes time to create a shoreline. In areas where the conditions were suitable, we do find high level shorelines. It appears from what we have found, that only towards the end of the deluge when the draining into the deepening seas slowed, was there time enough for shore lines to form. These raised shore lines are found on coasts in many parts of the earth and are due to a former higher sea level combined with local uplift caused in part by the depression of the ocean floors.On the Black Sea, dropping the lake level by evaporation instead of once having a lower outlet, that would have made the water that much saltier. As for the lake not getting salty in that time, look at the Caspian Sea, it hasn't been isolated that long and is well on its way to becoming as salty as the ocean. The Caspian sea was flooded with salt water and then was being flushed out by fresh river water until its level dropped below the outlet and them the salt levels began to increase. This partial freshwater flush is the reason we don't find more marine life in the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea which is not that far from the Black Sea, has responded with changing salt levels in fairly short periods of time. Yet the cores of the former Black Sea lake show no signs of increasing salt levels. The marine life in the Caspian Sea can not date back millions of years since in the ice age the lake there at times drained into the sea and was freshwater, which would have tended to have flushed out the marine life. As for genetic studies, the Caspian Seal is believed to have been isolated from its parent population the Arctic Ringed seal at the end of the ice age.On the drop stones and diatoms in Wisconsin. The SW Driftless area is not believed to have been covered by any lakes. A massive damming of the Mississippi was put forward for some of the drop stones at lower elevations, but there is no evidence for this and as the author of that theory admitted it would still not be able to account for the drop stones found at higher elevations. In order for the Mississippi t rise that high, it would require it to be backed up by a rising ocean level, since the required rise in level is too high to have been held in place by the surrounding terrain. The diatoms found are marine as found only in the ocean, they can't survive in freshwater. The area they were found in also has not been believed to have been covered by the glacial lakes.On the Pleistocene extinction, I have posted more above in this post already, but flooding is a better explanation of the pattern seen, especially when you consider how poorly current explanations fit with what is known about this extinction event. I find that flooding being the cause of the Pleistocene extinction event answers many questions in animal population distributions that have been without reasonable answers. Like why did so many animals survive in Europe when they died in America?For Edge; The collapse of an ice sheet or glacier is called a Jokulhlaup, what happens is a large amount of trapped water beneath the ice is released at the edge. This water release reduces the ground friction to about zero and the ice surges forward in a huge release of ice and water. These events have been observed on a small scale in Iceland. Similar events are believed to have happened on a larger scale with the ice sheets. If a large ice sheet suffered a large Jokulhlaup, the resulting release of ice and meltwater surging into the sea could have been large enough to raise global sea levels enough that the rising water destabilized other ice sheet edges resulting in a chain reaction of surging and flooding.some of the marine shorelines are found at great heights such as in the Andes mountains, but for the most part the flood was to brief to have created extensive shorelines at high elevations, or we would still be waiting for the water to drain. Yes you are right in that flooding is not considered as a possible cause of the Pleistocene extinction. It is specially excluded from consideration since the people involved do not accept the possibility of a global flood. For this reason they are blind to any evidence that may point in that direction. As you can see in reading the responses I get here and on other boards, everyone automatically rejects the flood regardless of any evidence I may present. People don't listen well when they think they already know the answer. Hopefully I will be able to change the scientific view of global flooding in time, but I will have to over come a lot of miss conceptions and prejudice first.