US explorers announced earlier today that they had found signs of human habitation hundreds of feet below the Black Sea where a catastrophic flood occurred about 7,500 years ago, which some scientists say is linked to the biblical story of Noah.
Explorer Robert Ballard, famous for discovering the wreck of the Titanic, said his National Geographic expedition found a "rectangular structure", possibly that of a building, about 310 feet below the sea's surface, indicating people lived there before a massive flood inundated the area.
"We now know people were living on that surface when that event [the big flood] took place because we are now finding evidence of human habitation," said Mr Ballard in a telephone interview from the Northern Horizon research ship, about 12 miles off the Turkish shore.
He said it was too soon to say whether there was a link between the great flood he believes occurred in the Black Sea and the one depicted in the Bible.
The team's chief archaeologist, Dr Fredrik Hiebert, described the finding as a major discovery.