Ancient Enigmas
Wombat-Tunnel Robot Sent Beneath Turkish Mound Some Believe Holds Noah's Ark
A small Australian-built machine named Gopher has been lowered into boreholes at the Durupınar formation as a 90-day field season ends and laboratory work begins.
MOUNT ARARAT, TURKEY — A robot originally designed to explore wombat burrows has been put to work at the Durupınar formation near Turkey's Mount Ararat, a boat-shaped mound that some believers hold to be the resting place of Noah's Ark, according to a report in the Daily Star.
The machine, called Gopher, was built by Dr Robert Ross of La Trobe University. The report says he has worked for nine months with the group Noah's Ark Discovery, after learning it was seeking a robot for the site. It carries waterproof wide-angle cameras front and rear, along with environmental sensors, and is said to be able to gather data 25 metres underground. It reportedly left Australia in late July.
Dr Ross is quoted as saying the project could be the archaeological discovery of the century, but that whether the site proves to be the Ark or "something completely different", he is pleased to see his technology helping researchers.
The fieldwork was a permitted collaboration led by Professor Cenker Atila of Sivas Cumhuriyet University with the independent Noah's Ark Scans team. Over the 90-day season the crew reportedly drilled cores to depths of 18 metres and logged the samples in 50-centimetre segments for laboratory study over the winter. An end-of-season video is said to show Gopher being lowered into a 12-metre borehole.
The team states that early testing indicates roughly 40 percent more organic matter inside the boat-shaped perimeter than in control samples outside, and in places reportedly triple the concentration. The report notes that the team had earlier claimed the Ark was "100% confirmed" following excitement over subsurface scans. No laboratory results have yet been published, and the drilling equipment has for now fallen silent.