Black Sea '01 Expedition Overview > Intro to the Black Sea The Flood Theory The Flood Theory (pt 2) The Shipwreck Museum Past Expeditions The 2001 Expedition INTRODUCTION TO THE BLACK SEA A dark sea of poison with many secrets The Black Sea (map, satellite image) is a very strange body of water. It is 700 miles across, plunges almost a mile-and-a-half deep, it's extremely opaque (I would estimate 15 ft visibility, versus say 100 ft in the Mediterranean), and most of it is poison. Learn about the origin of the anoxic zone THE ANOXIC ZONE The Black Sea's toxicity has an interesting explanation. Many deep bodies of water have what's called an anoxic zone -- a deep region where the seawater has no oxygen. The bottommost parts don't circulate together with the top, and thus the deep waters can't access the surface to obtain air. Let me explain. Gaseous O2 molecules floating in the atmosphere hit the surface of the sea and get dissolved in the water. Now salt is dissolved in water too but much more easily than oxygen (a pinch of table salt will settle through a glass of water). When oxygen molecules from the air dissolve in the sea, they do not get split up (dissociate) like the salt crystal NaCl into Na+ and Cl- ions (the major components of seasalt). Instead, the whole O2 molecule goes into solution (just like carbon dioxide gas dissolved in a carbonated drink). It is harder for dissolved oxygen to move through the water than dissociated salt (and that's why you have to pressurize a can of Coke to keep the CO2 in solution, and that's why it fizzes out as a gas again when you crack open the can). So for O2 to get distributed from the atmosphere to the lower parts of the sea, the water it is dissolved in must be physically carried around -- it needs to circulate. Here's the ideal situation: Water at the surface "takes a breath" from the atmosphere, meaning O2 gets naturally dissolved in it, and through the normal circulation of the sea (propelled by heat exchange with the Earth and the sinking effect of the denser, oxygenized water), the oxygenized water will physically mix into the rest of the sea. And the dissolved O2 will be distributed fairly. Now, in an anoxic zone, something has happened to prevent the depths from circulating (we'll find out what this "something" was for the Black Sea in The Shipwreck Museum). No circulation means no mixing of oxygenated water, so the depths are devoid of O2. Anoxic zones are not uncommon in many large bodies of water, and you can find many other dead zones in world). What makes the Black Sea special is that it's actually one giant anoxic zone. Only the top 500 feet are oxygenated, while the rest (as much as 7000 feet more) are completely suffocated. Down in this huge anoxic zone, dead plankton fall in eeirie wisps and snowflakes, covering the seafloor. It looks like a sterile moon or a wasteland. In all, 90% of the Black Sea anoxic. So there are essentially two seas in the Black Sea. The one on the top is thin, as deep as a pair of football fields, and scattered with fish, dolphins, jellyfish (including one bold one that tried to maim the author) -- basically what you'd expect in any decent sea. But underneath is the second sea, and it is a deep vat of toxic chemicals. To visualize its depth, imagine stacking all the football fields in the AFC (and NFC East) endzone to endzone. Except the depths of the Black Sea have a lot less stiffarming and scurrying, because the anoxic zone is lifeless...as lifeless as a Star Trek convention. TOXICITY Well, not completely lifeless -- but don't get excited, because the only things that can survive in the anoxic zone are strange bacteria which give off hydrogen sulfide (H2S) as a byproduct of their metabolism, which is biochemically similar to (but not as cool) as alcoholic fermentation by yeast. Unfortunately, hydrogen sulfide is, as we say in the northeast, wicked poisonous: just a lungful would be fatal. (Hydrogen Sulfide is also the outspoken constituent of flatulence.) So not only is 90% of the Black Sea void of oxygen and unable to support sociable life, it's actually filled with poison to boot. Quite clearly, this is the sea that drew the small straw. HISTORY AND LEGEND Nevertheless, because of its location, the Black Sea has always been an extremely busy waterway with volumes of history associated with it. It was arguably the crossroads of the ancient world: you've got Turkey on the South (en route to Mesopotamia), Greece to the Southwest, Russia to the North, Asia to the East, with the Balkans and proto-Europe to the West. It was on the Black Sea that Jason supposedly sailed with the Argonauts. The oldest processed gold in the world is on the Bulgarian coast in Varna. There are countless ancient ports around its rim, some seeming to be older than the pyramids. A thriving system of trade in the region is being extensively studied now, and it spans many civilizations throughout history. Therefore, as the Black Sea was the I-95 of the ancient world, the entire region is jam-packed with archaeology to be found. ARCHAEOLOGY In short: not a bad place to look for shipwrecks. And with the advent of deep water technology in recent years (and the end of the Cold War), this mysterious dark sea has suddenly become accessible to Western researchers. We're at an exciting threshold now, as wrecks are starting to be discovered under the Black Sea. Furthermore, shipwrecks aren't the only thing we're looking for plunged in the sunken depths: we're also looking for houses. Overview Introduction to the Black Sea The Flood Theory The Flood Theory (Part 2) The Shipwreck Museum Past Expeditions The 2001 Expedition Site by Chad Parmet: chadparmet@comcast.net   |   home.comcast.net/~chadparmet