Fountains of the Deep

One of the most commonly asked questions about the Biblical Flood by well-meaning Christians is “Where did the water for the Flood come from?” The question is a fair one.  Water such as is required for a global flood had to come from somewhere. This article will discuss one of the sources for the floodwaters. It is referred to in the Bible as “the fountains of the great deep”.

The Bible briefly describes what happened at the beginning of the flood in Genesis 7:11-12. “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”  These two verses clearly explain where the water came from for the flood.  However, most people have difficulty when it comes the fountains of the deep.  Water exploding from beneath the ground is not something we experience on an every day basis. However, there is little difficulty in understanding the principles behind the fountains of the deep.

The Bible references the fountains of the deep three times, twice in the context of the flood, once in context of Creation. These fountains were clearly put there from the beginning.  For what purpose is unclear. However, in the mid-1990s, researchers discovered a layer of water-rich mineral called wadsleyite. This mineral, which exists only at temperatures above 1800 degrees Fahrenheit,  is still capable of holding water.  Scientists estimate that somewhere between one and two percent of this wadsleyite is composed of water. The layer is found over four hundred miles below earths surface. It is likely this layer was the repository of water that reached earths surface from the fountains of the deep during the flood. Further, there are areas in earths crust which evolutionists have termed asteroid impact sites. I wrote about one of these some time ago in my article on Shocked Quartz.  These sites could also be interpreted as places where the fountains of the deep burst open and spewed water on the face of the earth.

When the fountains of the deep exploded upwards, several things had to have happened. Water four hundred plus miles below the surface would have been under immense pressure. When this pressure was lifted in one spot, the water would have immediately rushed into the area with the least pressure, causing potentially space high geysers of water. The water in these geysers would have been superheated, due to the exposure to temperatures in excess of 1800 degrees Fahrenheit.  As this superheated water reached the surface and pressure was removed, the outer edges of the geyser would have formed huge steam clouds that spread out from the geyser. Since the steam was super hot, likely still well over 1500 degrees, it would have instantly scalded to death anyone and anything nearby.  While this was going on, the onrushing hot water from the geyser would have met the frigid cold of space.  As the outer edges cooled, they would freeze and break off, forming the comets we see today.  However, much of the water would hit the atmosphere and follow the natural course of gravity downwards, falling as steaming hot rain.  It is possible that this was the source for the first rain to fall on earth as part of the flood, though there are certainly other alternatives as well.  As these geysers blasted skyward, they would have caused seismic activity on a global scale, by breaking the earths crust in such a dramatic way. This could have lead to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, among other possibilities.  Volcanic eruptions into the massive wall of water that would have begun washing over earths surface would have kept the temperature of the water extremely hot, ensuring few would last long in the churning waves.  The massive earthquakes caused could be the origin of the plate tectonics we observe in today’s world. By splitting the earths crust as the fountains of the deep did, they could have easily formed the plates that often jostle one another causing earthquakes and tsunamis and massive damage to man made structures.

The keen observer will have noted that much of the above paragraph was pure speculation. They would be correct. No one living observed the flood and the few people who did observe it and survive, ie Noah and his family, were too busy staying afloat to take seismic readings or measure the temperature of the water around them so observational first-hand data is unavailable to us.  The only things we have to go on are what evidence we can observe in the present and inference from that evidence for past implications.  The evidence we observe points to a global flood.  Based on that evidence, and the assumption that the Bible is true, we can make some logical guesses about how the flood must have played how. However, these are guesses and nothing more. They should not be taken as the work of science, because they are not. They are merely logical ideas of what might have happened based on how we observe processes to function in the present.  Thus anything we know about the fountains of the deep is subject to change, with one major exception. The Bible says they existed and that they provided much of the water for the Flood. That does not change.  The fountains of the deep did spew water out. The rest of the information listed above is both probable and logical but cannot be proved with observational science.