The SPONGE theory? Come on, you can do better than that. Actually that brings to mind the Magellan Mission to the planet Venus. Venus has an excess of dueterium in its atmosphere. Since earth-water is one part in 6000 Du, it was thought that this excess Du in venus’ atmosphere is evidence for a long lost venusian H2O ocean.
Then the Magellan Mission discovered that the mountains are far too steep(angle of repose)vs terran mountains. That in turn means venusian surface rocks are super HARD, ie, no water-as-lubricant in them. Thus venus never did have H2O oceans, and since it has no appreciable magnetosphere, solar and cosmic radiation over 4.5 billion years easily accounts for the excess Du.
My point : occam’s razor. Sure, the Black Sea was quickly created by a massive flood when the channel opened up, thus one FLOOOD story that became folklore, this has been well documented, no dispute there. What I’m saying is : look at Bangladesh, it routinely gets hammered by cyclones and the surge washes away thousands of people living on those low-lying islands in the delta region of the Ganges River. Something very similar happened to Noah living in the Indus River delta-region 5000+ years ago. His descendents jinned up this old but true story of cyclone survival into the myth that’s in Genesis, that’s all. How many died because of hitler’s aryan superiority myth?
Blind faith has gotten a lot of people killed over the centuries, that’s why we’ve developed SCIENCE, using our minds to think things thru; there’s a lot of con artists, flim-flam types out there, or false prophets as the bible says. Know the TRUTH, and be FREE. And forget that piece of wood on Mt Ararat, it’s nonsense, pure wishful thinking. Those pakistani sheepherders are still laughing about their fish story. I had a T shirt once : Einstein laughing : THEY BOUGHT IT!
You want a scientifically plausible explanation for a scientifically implausible hypothetical occurrence?
Okay ... Ya see, back then, there were no oceans, only lakes and seas. Sea of Gallilee, Dead Sea, and so forth.
The world was very smooth, with dry land covering almost all of it. Animals could walk all over the place. People could migrate everywhere.
Well, then, when the flood came, Noah's flood, that is -- THE flood -- when the flood came, it only took a few cubits worth of water and you were sunk, man!
And then poor Noah was cooped up in the Ark all that time, with just the worst sort of traveling companions and all, while the skin of the Earth was getting really waterlogged and pruny.
So finally the skin of the Earth just kinda split apart, and began shrinking and shriveling, and the mountains grew out of that.
Before the flood, it was all low hills, but afterward, whoa man! I mean real mountains!
The kind that if you go up them to talk to the local shrubbery, you get frostbite, you know?
Now, is that scientific enough for you?