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In article <1993Jan12.040948.13969@gallant.apple.com> batman@apple.apple.com (Ken Laws) writes:

>Part 2: my friend said he'd heard of "geological evidence" of the ocean level
>rising a couple hundred feet sometime during humanity's existence. Sounds
>like creationist pseudo-science to me. Anyone know where this idea came from?

>Thanks,

>Ken.

I am not a geologist, and I don't know the source of your friend. In 
addition, it is difficult to decide if the sea is rising or the land is
sinking. In Scandiavia there is ample evidence of coast-line changes since 
the end of the last ice age (the last 12000 years or so). Judging 
from fossils there were two periods when the Baltic was a fresh-water lake.
One speaks of a general land rise which continues today and which is about 1 
cm a year at its maximum (county of Angermanland, in the gulf of Bothnia). 
In that area the highest marine limit is more than 200 m above sea level. In 
the Goteborg (Gothenburg) area, where I grew up, it is a little less than 
100 m. In southermost Sweden there has been no land rise at all. The usual 
explanation of this landrise is that is a reaction to a depression caused by 
the ice sheet. This is far from certain, however.

There is also Scandinavian evidence of a period with the sea rising, some 7 
or 8 thousand years ago. The quarternary geologists' time-scale is
quite detailed, but I quote things I read decades ago. I don't remember
how big this rise was. I would think that between 10 or 30 meters would be
right. This rise is given as the reason for the opening of the
Danish straits and the Baltic being connected to the ocean.

In southernmost Sweden and in adjoining areas of Denmark, Germany etc.
there is no land rise. Instead, it is believed that large areas of
what is now the North Sea were once dry land. The Friesian Islands
from the North of Holland along the coast of Germany up to Denmark
formed a coast-line which was destroyed by heavy storms in the
17th century A.D.. This catastrophy is of course known in detail. 

From other parts of the world, the original and now extinct human population
of Tasmania is believed to have got there by foot, not by boat. Also, the 
crossing of the Bering's straits by the first settlers of America may have 
been over land. However, I have seen no accounts of sea-level changes in that
area.

All in all, I don't think that your creationist friend was all wrong when
he referred to geological evidence of substantial sea-level changes in 
human time. These changes, however, do not support the Biblical account
of the whole world being under water and all of mankind descending from
Noah and his family. Neither do they support the Swedish 16th century
historian Johannes Magnus, who claimed that one of Noah's grandsons was the 
first king of Sweden :-) .

Rolf Manne
Department of Chemistry, University of Bergen
e-mail Rolf.Manne@uib.no