Question

Which sentences in the story indicate that it is an ex nihilo type of creation story?

Answer 1

" There was as yet no man, nor any animal, nor bird, nor fish, nor crawfish, nor any pit, nor ravine, nor green herb, nor any tree; nothing was but the firmament. The face of the earth had not yet appeared—only the peaceful sea and all the space of heaven. There was nothing yet joined together, nothing that clung to anything else; nothing that balanced itself, that made the least rustling, that made a sound in the heaven. There was nothing that stood up; "

The creation story which is represented in the passage "ex nihilo earth diver world parents emergence" can be summed up as creation from nothing. In other words, the earth was created from nothing. 
For the purposes of this discussion, the creation story is a cultural, traditional or religious story  which describes the origins of the present world.
Creation Ex Nihilo is a common creation story and is found in the creation stories from Ancient Egypt, the Bible and the Quran.