[editor-surveyor]

"fountains of the great deep" may have been boiling hot springs, such as that which exist at the colliding of these plates

The plates were likely created at the beginning of the flood, when the crust of the earth ruptured, releasing the water below under great pressure world wide simultaneously. The curtain of water gushing up would have reached 10 miles or more in the air with that much pressure being applied all at once.

[Thinkin' Gal]

I should have put the emphasis on boiling. Death by boiling water, now that would have really steamed the antediluvians. :-]

[Cvengr]

I wouldn't say the water in liquid form was pushed up 10 miles, rather some interesting thermodynamic phenomenon may have arisen. A saturated atmosphere simply awaiting a catalyst to dump. There might even be some arguments posed to support glacier formation by this mechanism.