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Noah's Ark Researchers Drill into Boat-Shaped Formation in Turkey
Confirmed
In Short: This year's drilling at the Durupinar Formation in eastern Turkey found soil, not bedrock, challenging critics who had said it was a solid rock formation.
This year's drilling at the Durupinar Formation in eastern Turkey found soil, not bedrock, challenging critics who had said it was a solid rock formation.
Fox News reports that Andrew Jones, founder of Noah's Ark Scans, says they are inching towards confirmation this winter with soil analysis from Sivas University.
Jones told Fox News that a 2024 soil survey found three times more organic matter inside the boat-shaped formation than outside it, but Newsweek notes that identifying ancient wood does not establish human construction.
Newsweek also points out that the findings have not yet undergone independent peer review, adding that organic matter can accumulate naturally in soils.
In a 1996 study, geologist Lorence Collins and explorer David Fasold concluded that the Durupınar Formation was a natural rock formation, dismissing the theory that it contained the ark's remains.
The Jerusalem Post reported that a social media post claims a new radar survey confirms a man-made structure beneath the formation, but the Post says this claim is not independently verified.
The Durupınar formation, an approximately 538-foot-long geological structure near Mount Ararat, has been the focus of Noah's Ark searches since its discovery in 1959.
What's confirmed
- This year's drilling at the Durupinar Formation in eastern Turkey found soil, not bedrock, challenging critics who had said it was a solid rock formation.
- Fox News reports that Andrew Jones, founder of Noah's Ark Scans, says they are inching towards confirmation this winter with soil analysis from Sivas University.
- Jones told Fox News that a 2024 soil survey found three times more organic matter inside the boat-shaped formation than outside it, but Newsweek notes that identifying ancient wood does not establish human construction.
- Newsweek also points out that the findings have not yet undergone independent peer review, adding that organic matter can accumulate naturally in soils.
- In a 1996 study, geologist Lorence Collins and explorer David Fasold concluded that the Durupınar Formation was a natural rock formation, dismissing the theory that it contained the ark's remains.
- The Jerusalem Post reported that a social media post claims a new radar survey confirms a man-made structure beneath the formation, but the Post says this claim is not independently verified.
- The Durupınar formation, an approximately 538-foot-long geological structure near Mount Ararat, has been the focus of Noah's Ark searches since its discovery in 1959.
What's still developing
- Researchers with a Sivas Cumhuriyet University-led project have completed on-site studies at a ship-shaped geological formation in Ağrı’s Doğubayazıt district that some believe could be the remains of Noah’s Ark.
- Andrew Jones, vice president of the Noah’s Ark Research Project, told Fox News Digital about the project’s latest field season at Turkey’s Durupınar formation, where researchers collected more than 300 soil samples and conducted deep-core drilling.
- The boat-shaped formation was first discovered in 1959 and has long-drawn speculation over a possible connection to Noah's Ark.
- Scientists who have researched at Turkey's Durupinar site say they've found convincing evidence regarding the Noah's Ark hypothesis. (NoahsArkScans.com) Critics have maintained that the formation is naturally occurring, but Jones said recent drilling, soil sampling and ground-penetrating radar have given his team new reasons to challenge that conclusion.
- "They've criticized in the past, saying all those scans you can interpret different ways, 'This is a solid mass of rock, a syncline or a block of bedrock,'" Jones said.
- "Noah's Ark was a giant wooden boat, according to the Bible," he said.
- "As wood decays, you're gonna find elevated organic matter. This year, as we drilled into the formation, we did not find a solid rock layer, like the critics said. But we did find large deposits of highly rich black soil that has hopefully high organics."
- "Well, we've core drilled… over 12 locations. We did not find bedrock at all."
- The international group of archaeologists, geologists and soil scientists started drilling into the famous Durupınar Formation in order to collect its core samples last week, using a Gopher drone, an “underground robot built to go where a person cannot."
- Preliminary radar data do not show “a simple homogeneous solid-rock signature,” Andrew Jones, founder of Noah’s Ark Scans, said at the time.
- “We have so far recovered layers of rich organic material that we believe could be the decayed top-tier remains of the Ark,” Jones said last week.
- “When I said in our release that these layers could be the decayed top-tier remains of the Ark, I was describing the hypothesis we are testing, not a finding."