The story of Noah’s Ark and the great Genesis Flood is given in first book of the Bible (Genesis chapters 6-9). God instructed Noah to build a massive ark, large enough to carry two of each kind of land animal. The ark actually housed seven each of all the clean animals and and seven each of all the fowl. These flying kinds would have included 7 of each pterosaur kind (the great flying reptiles). It is quite likely that smaller juveniles would have been taken aboard to represent the larger dinosaur and pterosaur families. The great swimming reptiles, like the plesiosaurs, would not need to be on board since they could freely roam the entire globe during the Flood. Apparently it took a century of work to build the huge boat, prepare provisions, and load up all the animals that God would bring to Noah (Genesis 6:3). The God-given dimensions of the ark were vast. Picture a three-story barge that is longer than a football field! For almost a year, the Flood waters covered the lands, burying and killing the land animals that were not on the ark. The pressure of all that water would have rapidly created the fossil layers we observe today.

Eventually, God mercifully brought the Flood to an end. The ocean basins sank down; the continental plates rose up (Psalm 104:5-9); and the waters ran off into the sea. The sheet-like flowing of the receding waters carved out notches in the mountains, eroded the freshly laid sediments, formed vast canyons, and deposited material into the oceans to form the continental shelf. Fossilized dinosaur bones were left exposed for subsequent generations to excavate. It is possible, as the flood waters receded off the continents into the ocean, that some of the plesiosaurs could have remained behind, surviving in deep lakes. In Genesis 8 we read, “And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth” (15–17). As the dinosaurs and other animals came off, Earth’s creatures would have rapidly diversified within their kinds and migrated to occupy the empty habitats around the world. Abundant floating brush and tree debris from the Flood would have served as rafts to carry animals to distant land masses. So, were dinosaurs on the ark? The Biblical answer is yes!