Question: Where did all the water go after the flood?

Answer: Start with Scriptures to get a picture of where the water came from to begin with... Genesis 7:11-12 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. (12) And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. (NIV) First of all, note that the bulk of the water that covered the earth came from the "springs of the deep". Simulations have shown that 40 days (and nights) of rain could not have come close to covering the mountains. Genesis 8:1-3 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. (2) Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. (3) The water receded steadily from the earth... (NIV) Secondly, the first mention of wind in the Bible is when God sent it to help dry up the land. Our global wind patterns are a major factor in the circulation of water clouds surrounding the earth AND in maintaining the polar ice caps... which were most likely rapidly created following the flood to dry the earth. Strong winds would have supported this process. If the polar ice caps alone melted, it would flood much of the earth today. For perspective: Excluding alpine, or mountain glaciers, some of which are massive (like the Hubbard Glacier of Alaska, one of the longest in the world), consider that almost all of Greenland is covered by a glacier. It is over 700,000 sq. miles (1.8 million sq. km) in area and more than 9000 ft at it's maximum thickness. A similar type glacier covers almost the whole Antarctic continent. It covers an area of about 5 million sq miles (13 million sq. km). One tested area of West Antarctica was found to have a depth of more than 9480 ft (3000m) of ice and snow. Antarctica contains approximately 90% of the world's fresh water, which would have been deposited there by precipitation (rapidly following the flood)... contrast that to the size and depth of large fresh water bodies like the great lakes (they together with all other fresh water lakes, streams and clouds are the remaining 10%)! Many creation scientists believe that the ice age followed the flood, with glacial coverage over a much greater area. Subsequent glacial run off helped to define and redefine numerous fresh water bodies. It would have taken a number of years for the climates to stabilize after the dramatic events of the flood and subsequent drying. This also accounts for dry lake beds (found all over the world), that would have formed immediately following but were unsustainable from subsequent precipitation, resulting in their eventual evaporation. Glacial melting also would account for a great deal of the post flood erosion in some areas. As for where this glacial water would end-up, there is evidence that ocean levels have been in the ancient past up to 400 feet lower than the present (as shown by underwater features like shelves, terraces, and submerged canyons). Psalms 104:6-9 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. (7) But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; (8) they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. (9) You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth. (NIV) Thirdly, the bulk of water on the earth today is in the "valleys" of the oceans. The major changes that took place in the earth's crust during the flood and the breaking up of the springs of the great deep included volcanic action and tectonic movement. This movement would have continued during the drying up of the earth. The cracked and shifted layers of large, multilayered, rock strata (which were deposited during the flood) testify to the type of upheaval that took place. Literally the the valleys God assigned for the waters (the oceans) got wider and deeper and the mountains got taller... becoming "a boundary they cannot cross."