Despite numerous expeditions over the centuries, Noah's Ark has yet to be found. From Hong Kong to Holland, the world is fascinated by Noah and the Ark. This is not surprising because many cultures have ancient Flood stories. Although differing in detail, many of these stories seem to reflect the true story in Genesis 6-9.
Of all the known "lost" artifacts that have yet to be found, Noah's Ark is at the top of the list of many people.
Several teams continued their search for the real Ark. Most of them focused on Mount Ararat in northeastern Turkey, where eyewitness accounts of the timber structure have attracted interest for centuries. With such a large vessel and such great interest, why was it not found?
Perhaps we need to look again at the story in God's Word. It says that the Ark ended up in the “mountains of Ararat” on the 150th day of the flood (Genesis 8: 4). It was a region, not one mountain.
In addition, the researchers overlooked the geology of the region in their ancient quest for Noah's Ark. How did the rocks and layers in this region form and change during the Flood and in subsequent years?
The biblical reference to “Mount Ararat” as the landing site of the Ark suggests that these mountains were formed long before the end of the Flood. The flood became a global catastrophe that completely changed the geology of the Earth, and since then the Earth's surface has continued to change. Perhaps the geology of modern Mount Ararat sheds light on whether it is worth looking for Noah's Ark on this mountain.
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Mount Ararat is a young volcano located in a very unstable region. Beneath and around it lies a huge plateau, which was formed by the collision of tectonic plates, as a result of which huge lava flows covered more than 50,000 km2. Ararat is only one fiftieth of this area, a point of comparison that arose later. Is Noah's Ark really here?
Deep beneath Mount Ararat lies thousands of feet of Flood sediment filled mostly with marine fossils from the destruction of life in the ocean and on land. They are like the Flood layers that we find all over the earth.
Powerful lava flows lie over the Flood. They covered the region some time after the floodwaters drained from the ground. They accumulated over several years and included between streams thin deposits of local lacustrine sediments with fossils of buried freshwater fish.
Volcanic eruptions that spread lava across the Erzurum-Kars plateau and then created Mount Ararat began after the Flood. This means that ocean waters had already receded from eastern Turkey before Mount Ararat emerged.
All these details are vital in order to place the formation of Mount Ararat into biblical chronology. This, in turn, determines whether Noah's Ark is on Mount Ararat.
The volcano, now called Mount Ararat, did not grow earlier than a long time after the retreat of oceanic (flood) waters. In addition, the lava and ash layers of Mount Ararat date back to the afternoon ice age. This is consistent with Mount Ararat being built after the Flood on top of a dry plateau. Mount Ararat is thus a post-Flood volcano that continued to erupt more recently, less than 200 years ago.
Thus, it is impossible to find Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. Instead, he had to be on another high mountain in the region at the time. The Bible clearly speaks about the "mountains" of Ararat, and not about "Mount Ararat" itself.
Even without finding the Ark, there is overwhelming geological evidence that the Flood occurred, as the Bible describes.
A photograph taken by airplane in 1949 shows a large structure jutting out of ice and snow known as the Ararat anomaly. It is difficult to determine the size of the object or whether the images were taken at this location.
Some ark hunters are hoping this could be their next big break, but geologists say the object just looks like an outcrop of rock that only looks like an ark when the snow and ice melt in the right places. To date, the Turkish government has not allowed an expedition to explore the site.
In 1955, a wooden beam was found under the ice in a crack on Ararat. The timber was said to be about 5,000 years old, but testing in six laboratories showed the timber was less than 2,000 years old.
In 2010, wooden specimens were found that were believed to be part of the Ark. However, a number of evidence spoke of fraud.
Based on the fact that Mount Ararat rests on volcanic deposits on top of the Flood sediments, we can be reasonably confident that the Ark will never be found on this mountain. But should we expect to find Noah's ark elsewhere? Surprisingly, finding the famous Ark is extremely unlikely:
- The ark could have been used as firewood for construction after the Flood. Noah's family may have dismantled most of the ship for this purpose.
- Wooden structures usually do not last for centuries, even if they are treated with resin. Without regular maintenance, they eventually break down and then disappear due to decomposition.
- Some believe that the Ark is stuck in a glacier, which prevents the wood from rotting. However, the glaciers are moving, and such a movement would tear the Ark to pieces.