Major Discovery at ‘Noah’s Ark’ Site

A team searching for Noah’s Ark in eastern Turkey says its drills found rich black soil instead of the solid bedrock its leader says critics expected.

Andrew Jones, founder of Noah’s Ark Scans, said his team drilled at more than 12 locations within the boat-shaped Durupınar formation without encountering bedrock. The group’s next step is to test whether the deposits contain material consistent with the remains of a massive wooden vessel.

“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. “Well, we’ve core drilled… over 12 locations. We did not find bedrock at all.”

The roughly 538-foot-long formation near Mount Ararat has drawn Noah’s Ark hunters since its discovery in 1959. Its shape and location near the region described in the biblical account have fueled decades of speculation. Critics maintain it is a natural geological formation.

Jones said drilling, soil sampling, and ground-penetrating radar have given researchers reasons to keep digging. “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.”

Researchers plan to have the soil tested for organic content at Ankara University this winter. Jones said the analysis could help determine whether material beneath the formation is consistent with decayed wood or points to human activity. He also cited a 2024 soil survey that he said found three times as much organic matter inside the formation as in samples collected just outside it.

The findings have not confirmed the presence of Noah’s Ark. “In archaeology, you deal with probabilities, and we’re inching towards where we believe we will have confirmation this winter after our soil analysis is done with Sivas University, who’s our partner in this,” Jones told “Saturday in America.”