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#Post#: 114--------------------------------------------------
From Creation.com
By: Admin Date: February 5, 2017, 9:17 pm
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Age of the Earth: Creation.com
Young Earth Evidence
HTML http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=4741-4760-5079-9754-11383-12775
HTML http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth
101 evidences for a young age of the earth and the universe
by Don Batten
Published: 4 June 2009(GMT+10)
Young Earth Evidence from Human History and from BIology
Young Earth Evidence from Geology
Young Earth Evidence from Radiometric Dating
Young Solar System Evidence from Astronomy
Additional Sources
---
Young Earth Evidence from Geology
Geological evidence for a young age of the earth
Defining the Flood/post-Flood boundary in sedimentary rocks
HTML http://creation.com/defining-the-flood-post-flood-boundary-in-sedimentary-rocks
Search Cement, Cement agent, Lithification
HTML http://creation.com
-
HTML http://creation.com/ariel-a-roth-biology-in-six-days
Radical folding at Eastern Beach, near Auckland in New Zealand,
indicates that the sediments were soft and pliable when folded,
inconsistent with a long time for their formation. Such folding
can be seen world-wide and is consistent with a young age of the
earth.
-
HTML http://creation.com/ariel-a-roth-biology-in-six-days
Scarcity of plant fossils in many formations containing abundant
animal / herbivore fossils. E.g., the Morrison Formation
(Jurassic) in Montana. See Origins 21(1):51–56, 1994. Also the
Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon has many track-ways
(animals), but is almost devoid of plants. Implication: these
rocks are not ecosystems of an 'era' buried in situ over eons of
time as evolutionists claim. The evidence is more consistent
with catastrophic transport then burial during the massive
global Flood of Noah's day. This eliminates supposed evidence
for millions of years.
-
HTML http://creation.com/feedback-2000-and-before
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HTML http://creation.com/warped-earth
Thick, tightly bent strata without sign of melting or
fracturing. E.g. the Kaibab upwarp in Grand Canyon indicates
rapid folding before the sediments had time to solidify (the
sand grains were not elongated under stress as would be expected
if the rock had hardened). This wipes out hundreds of millions
of years of time and is consistent with extremely rapid
formation during the biblical Flood. See Warped earth (written
by a geophysicist).
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HTML http://creation.com/coal-memorial-to-the-flood
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HTML http://creation.com/the-yellowstone-petrified-forests
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HTML http://creation.com/redirect.php?http://www.icr.org/pressing-on-for-creation
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HTML http://creation.com/forests-that-grew-on-water
Polystrate fossils—tree trunks in coal (Araucaria spp. king
billy pines, celery top pines, in southern hemisphere coal).
There are also polystrate tree trunks in the Yellowstone
fossilized forests and Joggins, Nova Scotia and in many other
places. Polystrate fossilized lycopod trunks occur in northern
hemisphere coal, again indicating rapid burial / formation of
the organic material that became coal.
-
HTML http://creation.com/coal-volcanism-and-noahs-flood
Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces,
coal forms quickly; in weeks for brown coal to months for black
coal. It does not need millions of years. Furthermore, long time
periods could be an impediment to coal formation because of the
increased likelihood of the permineralization of the wood, which
would hinder coalification.
-
HTML http://creation.com/how-fast-can-oil-form
Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces,
oil forms quickly; it does not need millions of years,
consistent with an age of thousands of years.
-
HTML http://creation.com/creating-opals
Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces,
opals form quickly, in a matter of weeks, not millions of years,
as had been claimed.
-
HTML http://creation.com/article/3007
Evidence for rapid, catastrophic formation of coal beds speaks
against the hundreds of millions of years normally claimed for
this, including Z-shaped seams that point to a single
depositional event producing these layers.
-
HTML http://creation.com/instant-petrified-wood
Evidence for rapid petrifaction of wood speaks against the need
for long periods of time and is consistent with an age of
thousands of years.
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HTML http://creation.com/fluidisation-pipes-evidence-of-large-scale-watery-catastrophe
Clastic dykes and pipes (intrusion of sediment through overlying
sedimentary rock) show that the overlying rock strata were still
soft when they formed. This drastically compresses the time
scale for the deposition of the penetrated rock strata. See,
Walker, T., Fluidisation pipes: Evidence of large-scale watery
catastrophe, Journal of Creation (TJ) 14(3):8–9, 2000.
-
HTML http://creation.com/the-case-of-the-missing-geologic-time
Para(pseudo)conformities—where one rock stratum sits on top of
another rock stratum but with supposedly millions of years of
geological time missing, yet the contact plane lacks any
significant erosion; that is, it is a 'flat gap'. E.g. Coconino
sandstone / Hermit shale in the Grand Canyon (supposedly a 10
million year gap in time). The thick Schnebly Hill Formation
(sandstone) lies between the Coconino and Hermit in central
Arizona. See Austin, S.A., Grand Canyon, monument to
catastrophe, ICR, Santee, CA, USA, 1994 and Snelling, A., The
case of the 'missing' geologic time, Creation 14(3):31–35, 1992.
-
HTML http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth#paraconformities
The presence of ephemeral markings (raindrop marks, ripple
marks, animal tracks) at the boundaries of paraconformities show
that the upper rock layer has been deposited immediately after
the lower one, eliminating many millions of years of 'gap' time.
See references in Para(pseudo)conformities.
-
HTML http://creation.com/the-case-of-the-missing-geologic-time
Inter-tonguing of adjacent strata that are supposedly separated
by millions of years also eliminates many millions of years of
supposed geologic time. The case of the 'missing' geologic time;
Mississippian and Cambrian strata interbedding: 200 million
years hiatus in question, CRSQ 23(4):160–167.
-
HTML http://creation.com/the-three-sisters-strong-evidence-for-noahs-flood-in-australia
The lack of bioturbation (worm holes, root growth) at
paraconformities (flat gaps) reinforces the lack of time
involved where evolutionary geologists insert many millions of
years to force the rocks to conform with the 'given' timescale
of billions of years.
-
HTML http://creation.com/paleosols-digging-deeper-buries-challenge-to-flood-geology
The almost complete lack of clearly recognizable soil layers
anywhere in the geologic column. Geologists do claim to have
found lots of 'fossil' soils (paleosols), but these are quite
different to soils today, lacking the features that characterize
soil horizons; features that are used in classifying different
soils. Every one that has been investigated thoroughly proves to
lack the characteristics of proper soil. If 'deep time' were
correct, with hundreds of millions of years of abundant life on
the earth, there should have been ample opportunities many times
over for soil formation. See Klevberg, P. and Bandy, R., CRSQ
39:252–68; CRSQ 40:99–116, 2003; Walker, T., Paleosols: digging
deeper buries 'challenge' to Flood geology, Journal of Creation
17(3):28–34, 2003.
-
HTML http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth#paraconformities
Limited extent of unconformities (unconformity: a surface of
erosion that separates younger strata from older rocks).
Surfaces erode quickly (e.g. Badlands, South Dakota), but there
are very limited unconformities. There is the 'great
unconformity' at the base of the Grand Canyon, but otherwise
there are supposedly ~300 million years of strata deposited on
top without any significant unconformity. This is again
consistent with a much shorter time of deposition of these
strata. See Para(pseudo)conformities.
-
HTML http://creation.com/a-classic-tillite-reclassified-as-a-submarine-debris-flow
The discovery that underwater landslides ('turbidity currents')
travelling at some 50 km/h can create huge areas of sediment in
a matter of hours (Press, F., and Siever, R., Earth, 4th ed.,
Freeman & Co., NY, USA, 1986). Sediments thought to have formed
slowly over eons of time are now becoming recognized as having
formed extremely rapidly. See for example, A classic tillite
reclassified as a submarine debris flow (Technical).
-
HTML http://creation.com/experiments-on-stratification-of-heterogeneous-sand-mixtures
-
HTML http://creation.com/sedimentation-experiments-nature-finally-catches-up
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HTML http://creation.com/sandy-stripes
Flume tank research with sediment of different particle sizes
show that layered rock strata that were thought to have formed
over huge periods of time in lake beds actually formed very
quickly. Even the precise layer thicknesses of rocks were
duplicated after they were ground into their sedimentary
particles and run through the flume. See Experiments in
stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures, Sedimentation
Experiments: Nature finally catches up! and Sandy Stripes Do
many layers mean many years?
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HTML http://creation.com/canyon-creation
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HTML http://creation.com/a-canyon-in-six-days
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HTML http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j18_1/j18_1_45-46.pdf
Observed examples of rapid canyon formation; for example,
Providence Canyon in southwest Georgia, Burlingame Canyon near
Walla Walla, Washington, and Lower Loowit Canyon near Mount St
Helens. The rapidity of the formation of these canyons, which
look similar to other canyons that supposedly took many millions
of years to form, brings into question the supposed age of the
canyons that no one saw form.
-
HTML http://creation.com/vanishing-coastlines
Rate of erosion of coastlines, horizontally. E.g. Beachy Head,
UK, loses a metre of coast to the sea every six years.
-
HTML http://creation.com/eroding-ages
Rate of erosion of continents vertically is not consistent with
the assumed old age of the earth. See Creation 22(2):18–21.
-
HTML http://creation.com/antiquity-of-landforms
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HTML http://creation.com/eroding-ages
-
HTML http://creation.com/redirect.php?http://www.icr.org/quotes
Existence of significant flat plateaux that are 'dated' at many
millions of years old ('elevated paleoplains'). An example is
Kangaroo Island (Australia). C.R. Twidale, a famous Australian
physical geographer wrote: "the survival of these paleoforms is
in some degree an embarrassment to all the commonly accepted
models of landscape development." Twidale, C.R. On the survival
of paleoforms, American Journal of Science 5(276):77–95, 1976
(quote on p. 81). See Austin, S.A., Did landscapes evolve?
Impact 118, April 1983.
-
HTML http://creation.com/do-rivers-erode-through-mountains
Water gaps. These are gorges cut through mountain ranges where
rivers run. They occur worldwide and are part of what
evolutionary geologists call 'discordant drainage systems'. They
are 'discordant' because they don't fit the deep time belief
system. The evidence fits them forming rapidly in a much younger
age framework where the gorges were cut in the recessive stage /
dispersive phase of the global Flood of Noah's day. See Oard,
M., Do rivers erode through mountains? Water gaps are strong
evidence for the Genesis Flood, Creation 29(3):18–23, 2007.
-
HTML http://creation.com/how-fast-can-oil-form
HTML http://creation.com/the-recent-origin-of-bass-strait-oil-and-gas
Direct evidence that oil is forming today in the Guaymas Basin
and in Bass Strait is consistent with a young earth (although
not necessary for a young earth).
#Post#: 138--------------------------------------------------
Re: From Creation.com
By: Admin Date: February 19, 2017, 12:12 am
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HTML http://creation.com/continent-wide-sedimentary-strata
... British geologist Derek Ager in his book The Nature of the
Stratigraphical Record4 marvelled at the way
- sedimentary rocks layers persisted for thousands of kilometres
across continents.
- He mentioned the chalk beds that form the famous White Cliffs
of Dover in Southern England and explained that they are also
found in Antrim in Northern Ireland, and can be traced into
northern France, northern Germany, southern Scandinavia to
Poland, Bulgaria and eventually to Turkey and Egypt. He
described many other cases, yet even after that he said, “There
are even more examples of very thin units that persist over
fantastically large areas … ”
- Another example that Ager could have mentioned is the Great
Artesian Basin. This covers most of Eastern Australia (figure 2)
and its individual strata run continuously for thousands of
kilometres.5 Its sandstone members store enormous volumes of
underground water, which allowed ranchers to graze livestock and
settle the arid outback (figure 3). One of the formations within
this basin, often mentioned in the news when companies were
drilling for oil and gas, is the so-called Hutton Sandstone.
This rock formation, an easily-recognized target, was buried as
much as 2 km in the middle of the basin but exposed at the
surface at the edges—at places like Carnarvon Gorge in
Queensland.
- Layers of sediment blanketing such huge areas point to
something unusual happening in the past. Today, blankets of
sediments are not being deposited across the vast areas of the
continents; if they were it would be difficult for humans to
survive. Rather, sedimentation is localized, confined to the
deltas of rivers and along the narrow strips of coastline.
Layers of sediment blanketing such huge areas point to something
unusual happening in the past.
- A curious feature of these sedimentary blankets is that they
contain evidence of rapid, energetic deposition. Geologists
describe various strata as a “fluvial environment” or a “high
energy braided stream system”,6 which is another way of saying
the sediments were deposited by large volumes of fast flowing
water that covered a very large area.
Jones, D.C. and Clark, N.R., Geology of the Penrith 1:100,000
sheet 9030, NSW Geological Survey, Sydney, p.3, 1991.
Branagan, D.F and Packham, G.H., Field Geology of New South
Wales, Department of Mineral Resources, Sydney, p.38, 2000.
Sloss, L.L.(ed.), The Geology of North America, Vol. D-2,
Sedimentary Cover—North American Craton: U.S., The Geological
Society of America, ch. 3, p. 47–51, 1988.
Ager, D., The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, MacMillan,
pp. 1–13, 1973.
Assessment of Groundwater Resources in the Broken Hill Region,
Geoscience Australia, Professional Opinion 2008/05, ch. 6, 2008;
HTML http://www.environment.gov.au/water/publications/environmental/groundwater/broken-hill.html.
Day, R.W., et al., Queensland Geology: A Companion Volume,
Geological Survey of Queensland, Brisbane, pp. 127–128, 1983.
---
The Geologic Column: Does it exist?
HTML http://creation.com/does-geologic-column-exist
Conclusions
There are a number of locations on the earth where all ten
periods of the Phanerozoic geologic column have been assigned.
However, this does not mean that the geological column is real.
Firstly, the presence or absence of all ten periods is not the
issue, because the thickness of the sediment pile, even in those
locations, is only a small fraction (8–16% or less) of the total
thickness of the hypothetical geologic column. Without question,
most of the column is missing in the field.
- Secondly, those locations where it has been possible to assign
all ten periods represent less than 0.4% of the earth’s surface,
or 1% if the ocean basins are excluded. Obviously it is the
exception, rather than the rule, to be able to assign all of the
ten Phanerozoic periods to the sedimentary pile in any one
location on the earth. It does not engender confidence in the
reality of the geological column when it is absent 99% of the
time.
Thirdly, even where the ten periods have been assigned, the way
in which they were assigned can be quite subjective. It is a
well known fact, for example, that many unfossiliferous Permian
rocks are ‘dated’ as such solely because they happen to be
sandwiched between faunally-dated Carboniferous and
faunally-dated Triassic rocks. Without closer examination, it is
impossible to determine how many of the ‘ten Phanerozoic systems
superposed’ have been assigned on the basis of index fossils (by
which each of the Phanerozoic systems have been defined) and how
many have been assigned by indirect methods such as lithological
similarity, comparable stratigraphic level, and schematic
depictions. Clearly, if the periods in these locations were
assigned by assuming that the geological column was real, then
it is circular reasoning to use the assigned ten periods to
argue the reality of the column.
---
Genesis and Historical Geology: A Personal Perspective GUY
BERTHAULT
HTML http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j12_2/j12_2_213-217.pdf
ABSTRACT
Sedimentation experiments using heterogeneous mixtures of
particles carried by flowing water have shown that the strata
and sedimentary layers produced are generally distinct from one
another, contrary to the stratigraphic principles of
superposition and continuity. These principles overlook the
hydraulic conditions necessary for sediment transport in
transgressions. However, the relationships between observed
contemporaneous hydraulic conditions and sedimentary structures
can be used to determine the hydraulic conditions responsible
for the sedimentary deposits of the geological record. Thus
further flume experiments are now being undertaken in the
hydraulics laboratory at the Colorado State University (Fort
Collins) to produce a data set of 10,000 results from which the
relationship between current speed and particle size can be
determined. By these means it is already possible to show that
the diluvial conditions of the year-long Biblical Flood were
sufficient to deposit the sedimentary sequences of the
geological record (for example, of the Grand Canyon region,
USA). My religious instruction started when I was 10 years old.
I believed in the historical reality of Genesis. Shortly
afterwards, in a secular school, I commenced a course of natural
science which included historical geology. This taught a long
chronology of the Earth and corresponding evolution of the
species, which seemed to me to contradict Genesis. Subsequently,
I received a scientific education at the French Ecole
Polytechnique, then pursued a professional business career. I
have never forgotten the feeling these contradictions had on me
in my youth. Some years ago, I again studied geological history
based upon stratigraphy.
PRINCIPLES OF STRATIGRAPHY
A stratum is defined as a lithological unit between limit
surfaces in sedimentary rocks. It often provides evidence of
sorting of the particles of which it is composed, with their
size decreasing from bottom to top of the stratum. The limit
surfaces are:- (1) separations between the fine particles at the
top of one stratum and the large ones at the bottom of the
stratum which covers it; (2) bedding planes which can separate
two strata; and (3) those corresponding to a mechanical removal
of sediments due to erosion. The thickness of strata varies from
less than a millimetre to more than a metre. A series of
superposed strata having the same lithological content, for
example, sand, clay or limestone, constitutes a facies. For two
centuries, since stratigraphy was founded, and without formal
proof, superposed strata, and on a larger scale facies, have
been identified as successive sedimentary layers. As a result,
superposed strata were used to define relative chronology. The
principles of stratigraphy arose from the belief that strata and
facies are successive layers. The first principle, that of
superposition, is defined in France (which with England was the
cradle of stratigraphy) as: Layers (strata) having been
deposited horizontally, one upon the other, each layer is older
than the one which covers it. 1 The first part of the principle,
layers (strata) having been deposited horizontally, assumes a
horizontal area of deposition, and the average velocity of
sedimentation having to be uniform across the deposit area, for
each CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 2, 1998 213 stratum to be
horizontal. This latter condition is not met in contemporary
sedimentation, where the velocity of sedimentation is variable
as a function of the place and the depth of water. Secondly, the
principle of continuity:- Each layer (stratum) has the same age
at any point. This principle excludes the existence of ocean
currents which cause the particles composing the layer to
deposit successively in the direction of the current.
Consequently, the layer is not the same age at all points.
Oceans today are traversed by currents. These two principles
provided the base upon which geologists, at the end of the
eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth, established
age correlations between sedimentary rock sites separated by
distances exhibiting the same series of superposed fades. Later,
the age correlations were established from fossils, which gave
rise to the third principle, that of palaeontological identity:-
Two layers with the same palaeontological content are the same
age. This is another expression of the principle of continuity,
and similarly excludes the effect of ocean currents, which as
with particles, cause organisms to be swept along and deposited
successively in the sediments forming the layer in which they
become fossils. In consequence they, too, would not necessarily
have the same age. Constituted in this way, time in the
geological time- scale was only relative. The fourth principle
of uniform- itarianism had to be added. This claimed that the
rate of sedimentation in the past was the same as today, so that
by calculating the time necessary for the sedimentary formations
to form, an absolute scale of time could be obtained. The first
illustration of such a scale was given by Charles Lyell. 2 Now
in the twentieth century, the absolute ages of sedimentary rocks
are evaluated by measuring the radioactive elements in
intrusions and in eruptive material. The ages so obtained have
been used to show concordance with those from the geological
time-scale. However, John Woodmorappe has listed more than 300
absolute radiometric dates that are totally discordant with the
geological time-scale. 3
WALTHER'S AND MCKEE'S OBSERVATIONS
In 1970 my interest in sedimentology was aroused by reading the
reports of the Geological Society of America on the underwater
drilling campaigns of the American ship Glomar Challenger. It
was from these reports that I learned about the works of the
German geologist Johannes Walther, 4 who should be considered as
one of the principal founders of sedimentology. At the end of
the last century, in the Gulf of Naples, he studied the
formation of contemporaneous sedimentary deposits which
prograded, or developed, from the coast towards the open sea. By
drilling into the sediments, he observed the same succession 214
of facies, from the surface downwards, as from the coast towards
the sea, The existence of facies, juxtaposed and superposed at
the same time in a deposit area, could also be seen during
coastal marine floods. Sedimentary rocks also display superposed
and juxtaposed facies. The objective of sequence stratigraphy,
originating from Walther's observations, is to determine whether
a given sequence corresponds to a marine progradation,
transgression or regression. The principal proponents of
sequence stratigraphy, widely used today, are the Americans,
Vail, Van Wagoner and Posamentier. 5 It should be noted that
facies in sequences, superposed and juxtaposed at the same time,
do not follow the principles of superposition and continuity. In
1970, I also received a report from the American geologist Edwin
McKee of his 1965 observations of sediments deposited following
a river in Colorado overflowing its banks at Bijou Creek due to
48 hours of torrential rain upriver. 6 The stratified deposits,
reaching a thickness of 12 feet, exhibited particle sorting and
bedding joints. Such bedding planes are generally interpreted by
classical stratigraphy as the result of interruptions in
sedimentation followed by hardening of the sedimentary surface
of the lower surface of the plane.
FLUME EXPERIMENTS
The rains having lasted 48 hours, and the supply of sediment
being continuous throughout the period, it was impossible to
identify the strata in the deposit as successive layers of
sediment, with interruptions in sedimentation producing
partings. This led me to do some experiments on stratification.
The first were in France with limited material, the subsequent
ones in the USA at the well- equipped Colorado State University
with hydraulically- controlled flowing water transporting sand
through flumes. The flume experiments demonstrated the
mechanical nature of stratification, whereby: (1) Segregation of
particles according to their size, when exposed to a current of
variable velocity, gave rise to sorting. (2) Desiccation of
deposits caused bedding planes or partings. (3) Under both dry
and water conditions, stratification of the deposit formed
parallel to the slope of the initial area of deposit which could
exceed 30°. This fact invalidates the first part of the
principle of superposition as defined. (4) The strata resulting
from particle segregation were distinct from sedimentary layers
deposited between two consecutive times. The discovery of this
fundamentally important distinction provided an entirely new
conception of strata formation. (5) Due to the presence of a
current, strata were formed vertically and laterally at the same
time in the direction of the current (see Figure 1). CEN Tech.
J., vol. 12, no. 2, 1998 Figure 1. Schematic formation of
graded-beds. The stratified deposits formed in the flume
experiments showed that where there was a current, the
principles of superposition and continuity did not apply to
their formation. Reports of the experiments in France were
published by the French Academy of Sciences 7 in 1986 and 1988
respectively, and those in the USA in the Journal of the
Geological Society of France 8 in 1993. The reports were
translated and published in Ex Nihilo Technical Journal. 911 The
flume experiments were repeated in 1993 in a larger flume and
filmed for the production of a video entitled Fundamental
Experiments in Stratification, which was integrated into the
video Drama in the Rocks. 12 This latter video now forms an
integral part of the updated version of Evolution, Fact or
Belief? 13
DEPOSITION OF GRAND CANYON SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
In 1994 the Institute for Creation Research produced a book on
the Grand Canyon, 14 which included items by geologists Kurt
Wise and Steve Austin. The latter contributed an item entitled
'A creationist view of Grand Canyon strata' which made reference
to two papers, one by Rubin on the relation between hydraulic
conditions and stratified structures in the Bay of San
Francisco, 15 and the other by Southard which summarised 39
series of flume experiments on the same relations. 16 Rubin
summarised these relations by means of a three- dimensional
diagram (see Figure 2). The co-ordinates it features, producing
the different depositional structures, are the velocity of
current, depth of water and size of sedimentary particles.
Having recognised the same structures in the Grand Canyon
sedimentary rocks, Steve Austin applied them to the Tonto Group.
This formation extends for 800 km from east to west, and
corresponds to a transgressive sequence of three facies,
superposed and juxtaposed. He determined the hydraulic
conditions that existed when the sediments were deposited which
gave rise to the rock facies of the Tonto Group. These were
principally the velocities of currents of the ocean
transgression, which rose to more than 2,000 m above today's
ocean level. The maximum velocity was that which corresponded to
the initial erosion of the subjacent rocks by the invading
marine waters. It was greater than 2 m/s, and might well have
reached 22 m/s. With such current velocities, the 800 km margin
of the continent could have been submerged by invading ocean
water within several days. The velocities decreased as the
transgression reached its peak and before the waters started to
subside. It should be noted that the velocities are of the same
magnitude as those in our flume experiments. Logically,
therefore, the strata in the Tonto Group facies probably formed
similarly, that is, vertically and laterally in the direction of
the current. As the velocity of the current decreased the
particles deposited were finer and finer, giving rise to the
three superposed and juxtaposed facies of the Tonto Group:
sandstone, clay and limestone. The sedimentation was therefore
rapid, not only during the marine invasion, but all the time
that the ocean stayed at its highest level when there was little
or no current. In the absence of a current, the finest particles
would have been deposited at a speed of 2 cm/day. As soon as the
waters started to subside, the renewed current interrupted the
sedimentation of the finer particles. During the marine
regression, the inversed currents would have reached CEN Tech.
J., vol. 12, no. 2, 1998 Figure 2. Three-dimensional plot of bed
phase and sand-wave height as a function of velocity, sediment
size, and depth, generalised from bay data and flume data cited
in text. 215 Figure 3. The curves for erosion and deposition of
a uniform material. velocities sufficient to have eroded deep
valleys in the non- consolidated sediments deposited during the
transgression. The Tonto Group is attributed to the Cambrian
period which, according to the geological time-scale, lasted 70
million years. It can be seen, therefore, to what extent Steve
Austin's model, which is founded not upon the Biblical Flood,
but on the previously mentioned experimental data, 1516 at least
condenses the time required for a major part of the geological
time-scale.
FURTHER EXPERIMENTS
Determination of initial hydraulic conditions from sedimentary
rock structures, resulting from sediment- ological data is,
therefore, a research priority. In this connection, my colleague
Pièrre Julien presented a paper in May 1997 to the Third Powders
and Grains Conference at Durham, North Carolina, a re-published
copy of which follows this paper. The conclusions from our
current programme, which is admittedly ambitious, will
unfortunately not be available until next year. The experimental
work described below is, however, completed. In the report of
our stratification experiments, published in the Journal of the
French Geological Society, 8 reference was made to Filip
Hjulstrom. 17 From his observations of the morphological
activity of rivers, he produced the diagram (see Figure 3)
where, with regard to the average velocities of currents given
in ordinates, and the size of particles in abscissas, the zones
of erosion, transport and sedimentation of sedimentary particles
are represented. From the size of a sedimentary particle,
therefore, the velocities of currents which eroded, transported
and deposited sediments can be evaluated. Although the erosion
and transport have been carefully measured, the velocities of
sedimentation have been estimated empirically by Hjulstrom as
two-thirds of the 216 erosion velocities. The object of our new
experimental programme is to determine these velocities. Two
complementary series of experiments have been carried out in a
flume using small glass and steel balls of different sizes. In
the first series, a smooth-bottomed flume was traversed by a
water current carrying the balls along with it. The velocity of
current, corresponding to the deposit of a ball according to its
size and density, was noted. In the second series, the movement
of a ball in the same flume was studied up to when it stopped.
This time the flume was dry and sloped. Its bottom was roughened
by particles of calibrated sand, the size of which was changed
for each experiment. From the 10,000 pieces of data obtained, a
synthesis is being made of the two series of experiments
studying the complete movement of a ball (its fall, and its roll
on the rough surface of particles previously deposited, up to
when it stops). This synthesis, to be completed next year,
should enable the formulation of an experimental relationship
between velocity of current and size of particle, which will
allow for greater precision in determining the hydraulic
conditions pertaining when the sediments giving rise to
sedimentary rocks were deposited.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
In conclusion, regarding the principles of superposition and
continuity, it has been shown that: (1) Facies in sequences do
not follow each other but are deposited simultaneously,
according to sequential stratigraphy initiated by Walther; (2)
They do not apply to the resultant stratified deposits formed in
the flume experiments when there was a current; and (3)
Hjulstrom's observations on fluviatile sedimentation, and
submarine observations, such as Rubin's, and Southard's flume
experiments, establish the relation between hydraulic conditions
(depth, current velocity) and structures (grain diameters) of
the deposits. These deposit structures are found in sedimentary
rocks. From them, the original hydraulic conditions, and
particularly the velocity of the current, can be determined, as
Steve Austin did in the Tonto Group. In the absence of a
current, the conditions defined by the principles of
stratigraphy apply. When there is a transgression, regression or
progradation, there is automatically a current and the
principles no longer apply. If a principle, having world-wide
application, and used as a basis for scientific reasoning, is
shown by one experiment not to apply, the principle must be
abandoned. This is particularly the case for the principles of
stratigraphy upon which the geological time-scale was founded,
since they did not take hydraulic conditions into account. The
abandonment of principles upon which the geological time-scale
is founded, and the recognition of initial hydraulic conditions,
are likely to involve important changes in the conception of the
scale.
CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 2, 1998
An illustration is the correlation used in the Grand Canyon to
correspond the Flood of 370 days with the 460 million years
formation of the Cambrian to the Jurassic according to the
geological time-scale. This was made possible because the
initial diluvial conditions had not been taken into account by
the time-scale. The question remains whether with the failure of
stratigraphic dating, radiometric dating is a viable method. The
CEN Technical Journal recently published a report on the
radiometric dating by the potassium/argon method of a dacite
sample formed in 1986 when Mt St Helens last erupted. 18 The age
obtained was 350,000 years. Part of the sample was subjected to
a magnetic separation of the dacite into its constituent parts.
The ages obtained were respectively :- 340,000 years for
feldspar 900,000 years for amphibole 2,800,000 years for
pyroxene The report pointed out that the cause of the dating
error was the assumption that the argon measured came from the
rock after its crystallisation, whereas the lava, before
crystallisation, generally contained excess argon generated by
radioactive potassium. This assumption led to the attribution of
a very old age to a young rock. The same situation applies to
other elements whose radioactivity existed in lavas and magmas
from which crystallised rocks came. The fact that radiometric
dating methods require stable daughter isotopes does not resolve
the problem, because these isotopes often also exist in the
lavas and magmas. The liquid lavas being constantly mixed, the
parent/daughter relationships in a given volume are not
constant. As a result, two samples from the same rock unit can
have quite different radioactive ages. This phenomenon
challenges the validity of radioactive dating of rocks. Finally,
what natural phenomenon could have caused the flood conditions?
In January 1996, the Journal of the Natural History Museum in
Paris published a study by Christian Marchal, 19 Research
Director at ONERA (Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches
Aerospatiales). The conclusion of a calculation in mechanics
showed that the uplift of the Himalayas brought about a
temporary geographical displacement of the axis of the Earth's
rotation, the amplitude of which could have reached 30°.
Christian Marchal, in fact, evaluated the displacement at
between 60° and 90°. The Earth being an ellipsoid, a tilt in
such conditions would inevitably have provoked one or more
displacements of the oceans which covered the continents. The
summary of the data leads to a geological chronology
significantly shorter than that proposed by the geological
time-scale, and to a different history to the one taught in our
schools. In consequence, the feeling of contradiction
experienced in my youth no longer exists. The Flood conditions,
which undoubtedly existed, buried many species that had been
displaced on account of their palaeontological distribution into
superposed biozones. The position of the latter in the fossil
record led to the disputable belief of a chronological
succession of species and, in consequence, the various theories
of evolution.
REFERENCES
1. Aubouïn, J., Brousse, R. and Lehman, J. P., 1968. Precis de
Geologie, Vol. 2, pp. 227.
2. Lyell, G, 1832. Principles of Geology, John Murray, London.
3. Woodmorappe, J., 1979. Radiometric geochronology reappraised.
Creation Research Society Quarterly, 16(2): 102-129.
4. Walther, J., 1893-1894. Einleitung in die Geologie als
historische Wissenschaft, Iena Verlag von Gustav Fisher, Sud.
1055p.
5. Van Wagoner, J. C, Posamentier, H. W., Mitchum, Jr., R. M.,
Vail, P. R., Sarg, J. R, Loutit, T. S. and Hardenbol, J., 1988.
An Overview of the Fundamentals of Sequence Stratigraphy and Key
Definitions, S. C. Kendall.
6. McKee, E., Crosby, E. J. and Berryhill, H. L., 1967. Flood
deposits, Bijou Creek, Colorado, 1965, Journal of
Sedimentologicai Petrology, 37:829-851.
7. Berthault, G., 1986. C.R. Acad. Sc. Paris, t. 303, Serie II,
No. 17 and Serie II, pp. 717-724.
8. Julien, P., Lan, Y. and Berthault, G., 1993. Experiments on
stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures. Bulletin of the
Society of Geology, France, 164(5):649-660.
9. Berthault, G., 1988. Experiments on lamination of sediments.
EN Tech. J., 3: 25-29.
10. Berthault, G., 1990. Sedimention of a heterogranular
mixture: experimental lamination in still and running water. EN
Tech. J., 4: 95-102.
11. Julien, P. Y., Lan, Y. and Berthault, G., 1994. Experiments
on stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures. CEN Tech. J.,
8(1): 37-50.
12. Drama in the Rocks, video distributed by Answers in Genesis,
PO Box 6302, Acacia Ridge DC Qld 4110, Australia.
13. Evolution: Fact or Belief? Video distributed by Answers in
Genesis, Australia, USA and UK.
14. Austin, S. A., 1994. Grand Canyon — Monument to Catastrophe,
Institute for Creation Research, California.
15. Rubin, D. M. and McCulloch, D. S., 1980. Single and
superimposed bedforms: a synthesis of San Francisco Bay and
flume observations. Sedimentary Geology, 26:207-231.
16. Boguchwal, J. A. and Southard, J., 1990. Bed configuration
in steady unidirectional waterflows, part 2. Synthesis of flume
data, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 60(5): 658-679.
17. Hjulstrom, F., 1935. The morphological activity of rivers as
illustrated by river Fyris, Bulletin of the Geological Institute
Uppsala, 25, chapter 3.
18. Austin, S. A, 1996. Excess argon within mineral concentrates
from the new dacite lava dome at Mount St Helens volcano. CEN
Tech. J., 10(3):335-343.
19. Marchal, C, 1996. Earth's polar displacements of large
amplitude: a possible mechanism. Bulletin du Museum National
d'Historie Naturelle, Paris, 4em ser. 18, section C. no. 203,
pp. 517-554.
Guy Berthault is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, France,
and a keen student of geology, particularly the deposition of
sediments as a guide to the understanding of structures that we
find in sedimentary rocks. He resides at 28 Boulevard Thiers,
78250 Meulan (Paris), France.
CEN Tech. J., vol. 12, no. 2, 1998 217
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Mount St Helens— exploding the old-earth paradigm
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TJ 18 (1) 2004 46 Book Reviews
Michael Oard
The significance of the Mount St Helens eruptions to
catastrophism and Flood geology are explained at a layman’s
level in this brilliantly illustrated book. Creationists, indeed
all geologists, around the world can learn much from the events,
which began on 18 May 1980, at this now- famous mountain. And
thanks to the detailed investigations carried out by many
scientists, the recent geological and geomorphological events at
Mount St Helens can provide insightful analogs for past
earth-shaping events, which are evident in the rocks and
fossils. These analogies defy the principle of
uniformitarianism—the guiding light for mainstream geological
interpretation—and have fuelled the ideas of the
neo-catastrophists, who have brought back catastrophism into
secular geological thinking (although not on the scale of the
Genesis Flood). Creationists can use neo-catastrophic ideas and
research about the eruptions of Mount St Helens to better
understand Flood and post-Flood catastrophic processes.
Catastrophic analogs
Rapid deposition is clearly evident from the historical record
at Mount St Helens. During the initial and subsequence
eruptions, about 180 m of stratified sediment were rapidly laid
A review of Footprints in the Ash: the explosive story of Mount
St Helens by John Morris and Steven A. Austin Master Books,
Green Forest, AR, 2003 down by dynamic processes (air blast,
landslide, lake waves, pyroclastic flows, mudflows, air fall and
stream water). These sediments contain dead plants and animals,
some of which are now fossilizing. Cross-bedded and graded
strata were formed rapidly and some of the strata were
sufficiently lithified (within five years) to stand at near
vertical slopes. Clastic dikes, which also indicate rapid
deposition—to allow for soft sediment intrusion—were noted at
several locations. A pyroclastic flow, moving at 150 kph,
deposited thousands of finely laminated layers in a few hours.
Without the documented history, uniformitarian geologists would
consider these strata to have taken long periods of time to
form. For example, as the mode of sediment transport
(pyroclastic or water lain) is often indistinguishable, couplets
of such laminated layers would normally be considered varves,
each thought to have formed during one year. But Mount St Helens
demonstrated that layered sediment can form catastrophically
within hours. The events at Mount St Helens also show that many
landforms can form quickly by catastrophic action. A 30-metre
deep canyon (Lower Loowit Canyon) was cut in hard basalt as rock
avalanched from the crater. Grooves and striations were formed
on solid bedrock by avalanche and ‘blast clouds’ that tore loose
boulders and dragged them with great force across the exposed
rock. (Such grooves and striations— found all over the earth—are
normally interpreted to be the result of an ancient glaciation.)
Craters were formed as steam exploded from superheated ice,
which had been buried by hot sediments. Subsequent sloughing of
sediments into these ‘explosion pits’ resulted in the rapid
formation of badlands topography. Normally such topography would
be interpreted as being formed by slow erosion over hundreds of
thousands of years. Of great interest is the 19 March 1982
mudflow, which produced a 43- meter deep canyon in one day. This
canyon is a one-fortieth scale model of the Grand Canyon of
Arizona. After seeing this happen, we can now easily envision
how large canyons could have been formed rapidly at the end of
Noah’s Flood.
Spirit Lake
An extremely energetic wave in Spirit Lake, north of the
volcano, sloshed 260 m up the side of the adjacent mountain,
with the return flow dumping one million trees into the lake. As
these floating trees rubbed against each other, bark was
dislodged and sunk to the bottom of the lake. Such bark, covered
over with sediments, mimics a layer of peat that can turn into a
coal seam, with subsequent sedimentation and time. This is a
modern example of the creationist log mat model for the
formation of coal. Many of the trees in Spirit Lake have sunk
into a vertical position, at different levels on the lake
bottom. One can imagine, if Spirit Lake filled with sediments
and was subsequently eroded, we would see many levels of
vertical trees. These could easily be interpreted as multiple
fossil forests that formed over tens of thousands of years. But
they are not forests and they formed quickly. This amazing
process provides insights into how the famous multiple levels of
fossil trees found in vertical positions at Yellowstone National
Park and at Joggins, Nova Scotia, also formed quickly. Although
Mount St Helens has continued to show signs of activity, the
landform has remained fairly stable since 1982. In the
post-catastrophic period, vegetation and animals have returned
rapidly to the surrounding area. This recolonization provides us
with useful clues to understanding the rapid repopulating of the
earth after the devastation of the Genesis Flood.
Radiometric dating
Mount St Helens also provided an opportunity to check
radiometric dating methods. Samples of newly formed rock from
the lava dome within the crater were dated up to 2.4 million
years old by the K-Ar method, which is supposed to register the
time since solidification of the lava. This is contrary to the
known history of the lava cooling between 1980 and 1986. Such
old dates for recent lava flows have been documented numerous
times. Something is certainly wrong with the old ages derived
from the radiometric dating methods. Conclusion Mount St Helens
adds up to a real- life laboratory to understand a number of
processes that occurred on a much larger scale, during Noah’s
Flood. At Mount St Helens, these processes were observed to
rapidly form a wide range of geological features, in contrast to
the thousands to millions of years assumed by mainstream
scientists. Mount St Helens demonstrates that when we bring the
Flood back into our thinking, a large percentage of the
uniformitarian time challenges melt away. This book wonderfully
illustrates the many catastrophic events, which occurred at
Mount St Helens, which can be used to improve our thinking about
the catastrophic events that occurred during the Flood.
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Sedimentation Experiments: Is Extrapolation Appropriate? A Reply
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'As with biotopes, it is a basic statement of far-reaching
significance, that only those facies and facies-areas can be
superimposed primarily which can be observed beside each other
at the present time.' The law applies to progradation of
sediments, transgressions and regressions. The video gives
illustrations of the application of these movements to both
coastal sediments and deep sea sediments. The latter accords
with the published data from the 'Glomar Challenger' drilling
programme. (3) Visualisation of our experiments in France and in
the United States. These include the flume experiments, showing
superposed strata depositing at the same time, which confirm
Walther's Law. (4) My own comments, in which I emphasise that
our experiments invalidate the basis of the geological time-
scale. Some of my remarks are based upon sequence stratigraphy,
and not on the results of our experiments, although the latter
have an indirect application. It should be noted that the
experiments liberate sequence stratigraphy from the limits of
bedding plane partings. The latter need no longer be considered
as chronological markers, arising simply from sedimentary
hiatuses. It is shown that they can arise by desiccation
subsequent to the deposit, and therefore have no chronological
significance. I would refer Hoskin, who makes no comment on
sequence stratigraphy, to the paper on that topic by Froede. 24
Considering the possibility that the sedimentation giving rise
to sedimentary rocks could have resulted from successive tidal
waves moving across the oceans, as I suggested in Drama in the
Rocks, does not seem to me incompatible with the Noahic Flood.
The recognition by Steve Austin of lateral currents of 90 to 15
cm/s at the time of formation of cross- beds in the Grand Canyon
lends some support to the hypothesis. The determination of
initial hydraulic conditions from the stratification of rocks,
in association with sequence stratigraphy, should, I think, shed
light upon the problem of compatibility of the Noahic Flood with
the new stratigraphy.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS AND PRESSING ISSUES
Once again Hoskin uses his own interpretation of the mechanism
of non-horizontal layers to see if it can account for the
stratification of the Grand Canyon. He thinks not, and asks
whether in fact 'sedimentation would not operate many times on
small packages of sediments'. The response to this dilemma does
not come directly from our experiments, but rather more from
sequence stratigraphy. Knowing that a transgressive series 68
corresponds from bottom to top to a superposition, such as
sandstone-siltstone-shale-limestone, and the reverse position
for a regressive series, an analysis of the geologic block
diagram of the Grand Canyon 25 starting from Tapeats can be
made. First, a marine transgression from Tapeats to Redwall,
followed by a regression from Redwall to Supai. Then comes a
transgressive-regressive cycle from Supai to Coconino, followed
by a final transgression prior to the waters retreating. McKee
26 made an interesting study of the Supai Group to determine the
directions of the currents corresponding to these transgressions
and regressions. The transgressive and regressive series follow
Walther's Law. The direction of the current, and to some extent
its speed, can be ascertained from the slope of the cross-
stratification in the sandstones (Tapeats, Supai, Coconino).
This speed is highly variable and determines the sizes of the
deposited particles. Graded-beds are created in these
conditions, with the sediments depositing upward and downstream.
The Figure 2 is a diagram by Vincent 27 of a marine
transgression. When the ocean is at A, the sedimentary layer
deposited is a; when at B, b; when at C, c. In a vertical
direction from A, the deposit of pebbles, sandstone and marl
superpose when the ocean level is at C. But when the ocean level
is at C, the pebbles deposit at C, the sandstone at B, the marl
at A. Figure 2. Diagram of a marine transgression showing the
sequential deposition of the various facies. The diagram
illustrates Walther's Law of Facies: pebbles, sandstone and marl
are seen to be superposed and juxtaposed in the area of the
deposit. It is in this way, therefore, on the scale of facies,
that stratification in the Grand Canyon has to be interpreted.
(2) and (3) Hoskin mentions the case of juxtaposed rocks having
different stages of oxidation and different cements. This seems
to be a question of chemical action having taken place
subsequent to sedimentation, which would accord with Walther's
Law. (4) Hoskin then refers to evaporitic salts. Again I would
refer him to Walther's Law. These salts occur in shallow waters
which arise in the final stage of a transgressive series, or the
first stage of a succeeding regressive series, following
Walther's Law. (5) I have read the report of the Boguchwal and
Southard experiments showing the incidence of temperature on CEN
Tech. J., vol. 11, no. 1, 1997 the conditions of sedimentation.
28 In our experiments we did not vary the temperature, although
I agree that it could have had some effect. It would not,
however, have fundamentally altered the results obtained. (6)
Hoskinasks, 'Why are the majority of graptolite fossils found on
desiccation cracks and not disseminated throughout the sediment
itself?' Aubouin 29 specifies that graptolites are mainly found
in schists, which under tectonic strain produce an axial- plane
foliation which coincides with the bedding planes. Thus, joints
in schists would result from mechanical action of strain rather
than from desiccation. Why graptolite fossils are found in these
joints or cracks remains to be explained. I don't know. Hoskin's
two final questions can be summarised as follows: why, if
bedding plane partings result from desiccation, do they occur in
the middle of large uniform deposits? The same question can, of
course, be asked regarding vertical cracks found in sandstone
and limestone. I have never said that desiccation is the only
factor creating bedding plane partings. But the postulate of
stratigraphy that these partings are sedimentary hiatuses has
been shown by my experiments to not necessarily apply.
Desiccation has been shown experimentally to be a factor. In my
view it is wiser to rely on observable repeatable experiments
than on interpretations unsupported by facts.
CONCLUSIONS
Our experiments have invalidated the identification of
superposed rock strata with successive sedimentary layers.
Consequently, the experiments invalidate the principles of
superposition and continuity upon which the geological
time-scale was founded. They shed light upon the mechanism of
stratification. Our laboratory work contributes to discoveries
in sedimentology in the domain of observation and
experimentation. Our new series of experiments currently taking
place, has as its objective for 1997-1998 the development of an
understanding of sedimentary mechanics. Despite what is said to
the contrary, 'the present is the key to the past' if
contemporary sedimentary mechanisms can be used to explain those
which created the sedimentary rocks. The first contribution to
sedimentology came from Johannes Walther, whose observations of
contemporary sedimentation led to sequence stratigraphy and the
recognition of transgressive and regressive series. Our flume
experiments demonstrate that Walther's Law, which applies to
facies series, also applies to the internal strata of facies.
The experiments have also shown that bedding plane partings are
not necessarily sedimentary hiatuses, but could be due to
desiccation. In which case, it would mean that there would be no
discontinuity between superposed sequences. These facies series
have up until now only been studied CEN Tech. J., vol. 11, no.
1, 1997 locally. No account has been taken of their relationship
with each other. A marine transgression or regression, however,
should be recognisable throughout its extent wherever it
deposited its sediments. This is why observations, such as those
of Rubin and McCulloch, and those in our flume experiments,
ascertaining the relations between hydraulic conditions and
stratification are so important. It is from them that the
stratification of rocks can, within certain limits, determine
the initial hydraulic conditions at depth, and the speed and
direction of transgressive and regressive currents. With the aid
of sequence stratigraphy, the entire extent of these
transgressions and regressions can be reconstituted, as well as
their succession in time. Taken together, all of this provides a
more exact view of the history of geological time. When,
therefore, in the video I spoke of successive tidal waves, it
was certainly in anticipation of the results of this
reconstitution. This anticipation, however, which is coherent
with the results already known that I have recapitulated above,
does not, in my opinion, merit the term 'extrapolation'.
Regarding the Noahic Flood, might not these successive tidal
waves result from 'the fountains of the deep'?
REFERENCES
1. Hoskin, W., 1997. Sedimentation experiments: is extrapolation
appropriate? CENTech. J., 11(1):
2. Berthault, G., 1986. Experiments on lamination of sediments.
Compte Rendus Académie des Sciences Paris, t.303, Série II, no.
17:1569- 1574; and EN Tech. J., 3:25-29(1988).
3. Berthault, G., 1988. Sedimentation of a heterogranular
mixture: experimental lamination in still and running water.
Compte Rendus Acadéinie des Sciences Paris, t. 306, Série
11:717-724; and EN Tech. J., 4:95-102 (1990).
4. Julien, P. Y., Lan,Y. and Berthault, G., 1993. Experiments on
stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures. Bulletin of the
Geological Society of France, 164(5):649-660; and CEN Tech. J.,
8(l):37-50 (1994).
5. Berthault, G., 1995. Drama in the Rocks. Video, Creation
Science Foundation Ltd, Australia.
6. Julien, P. Y. and Berthault, G., 1994. Fundamental
Experiments on Stratification. Video, Sarong Ltd, Monaco.
7. Julien et al., Ref. 4, p. 37.
8. Berthault, Ref. 2.
9. Berthault, Ref. 3.
10. Julien et al., Ref. 4.
11. Julien et al., Ref. 4, p. 37.
12. Berthault, Ref. 3.
13. Julien and Berthault, Ref. 6.
14. Southard, J. B. and Boguchwal, L. A., 1980. Bed
configurations in steady unidirectional water flows. Part 2.
Synthesis of flume data. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology,
60(5):658-679 (Table I).
15. Berthault, Ref. 3, p. 100.
16. Rubin, D. and McCulloch, D. S., 1980. Single and superposed
bedforms: a synthesis of San Francisco Bay and flume
observations. Sedimentary Petrology, 26:207-231.
17. Austin, S., 1994. Interpreting strata of Grand Canyon. In:
Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, Institute for Creation
Research, San Diego, California, pp. 21-51.
18. Rubin and McCulloch, Ref. 16, p. 207.
19. Walther, J., 1893-1894. Enleitung in die Geologie als
historische Wissenschaft, Iena Verlag von Gustav Fisher, three
volumes, 1055p. 69
20. Walther, J., 1910. Die Sedimente des Taubenbank in Golf von
Neapel, Berlin-Akad. Wiss Abh könig — press, 49p.
21. Walther, Ref. 19.
22. Walther, Ref. 20.
23. Middleton, G., 1973. Johannes Walther's law in the
correlation of facies. Geological Society of America Bulletin,
84:979-988.
24. Froede, C. R. Jr., 1994. Sequence stratigraphy and creation
geology. Creation Research Society Quarterly, 31: 138-144.
25. Austin, Ref. 17.
26. McKee, E. D., 1979. Characteristics of the Supai Group in
Grand Canyon, Arizona. In: Carboniferous Stratigraphy in the
Grand Canyon Country, Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada, S.
S. Beus and R. R. Rawson (eds), American Geological Institute,
Fall Church, Virginia, pp. 110-112.
27. Vincent, P., 1962. Sciences Naturelles, Vuibert
28. Boguchwal, L. A. and Southard, J. B., 1990. Bed
configurations in steady unidirectional water flows. Part 1.
Scale model study using fine sand. Journal of Sedimentary
Petrology, 60:649-657.
29. Aubouin, J., 1967. Précis de Géologic, Dunod, Tome I, p.
413; Tome II, p. 130.
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The mountains rose
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A review of The Origin of Mountains Edited by Cliff Ollier and
Colin Pain Routlege, London 2000 TJ 16 (3) 2002 41
Book Reviews
Michael J. Oard
This is a book with a controversial message on the origin of
mountains— controversial that is to uniformitarian geologists.
Cliff Ollier and Colin Pain are well known geomorphologists from
Australia who apply geomorphology, the study of the origin and
development of the Earth’s surface features, to Earth science
problems. Their decades of international experience give them
insights into the origin of mountains that are valuable to
creationists attempting to model the details of the Genesis
Flood.
Strata first folded
Many geologists and geophysicists assume that the mountain
building process of horizontal compression caused the folds we
see in the mountains today. But the authors state: ‘There is no
direct evidence that folding was accompanied by mountain
building’ (pp. 274–275). The main reason for this radical
deduction is ‘the certain knowledge that the strength of rocks
is insufficient to permit folds to be created by lateral
compression’ (p. 275). The authors believe that most folds, as
well as thrusts, were caused when huge masses of rock slid down
slope under the influence of gravity, an idea denied by most
geologists today. To back up their contention, they provide some
impressive modern analogues from the continental slope and rise,
including the huge Agulhas Slump off southeast Africa, the
distal Bengal Fan, and the Niger Delta. Tensional and
compressional structures, similar to those found in mountains,
have formed in these areas during downslope mass movement.
Seismic sections of ancient folded sediments from all over the
world, especially along convergent plate margins, look similar
to these modern marine sediments found along the continental
margins. It is my opinion that another mechanism for folding
also is valid, and that is differential vertical tectonics, as
propounded by S. Warren Carey. 1 For example, there are quite a
number of anticlines in Montana and other areas of the Rocky
Mountains of North America that are cored by granitic rocks. 2
The sedimentary rocks form drapes over these plutonic cores.
Although it is generally believed such basement-cored anticlines
were produced by horizontal compression, it is easier to believe
they were produced by upward vertical tectonics, especially
since mid and upper crustal rocks are likely to fail upon
compression and not produce folds.
Strata next planed worldwide in about the Miocene of the
geological time scale
Ollier and Pain show that after the strata were folded by these
tectonic events, they were planed down to form flat surfaces,
called planation surfaces, on all the continents, including
Antarctica (p. 214). This global planation process cut across
previously folded sedimentary rocks and smoothed both the hard
and soft rocks evenly. Even massive granite was planed over many
areas, as in the Tien Shan Mountains of central Asia (p. 144).
Planation is assumed to have occurred subaerially by the kinds
of erosional processes that we observe today on the continents.
The surfaces were planed down to what is called base level,
which is usually considered to have been sea level (p. 3). It is
interesting that one planed area, the area that is now occupied
by the Apennines Mountains of Italy, was planed below sea level
(p. 72)! In some areas the planation surfaces are very flat,
such as the plains of Australia and Africa (p. 1). Below these
plains the sedimentary rocks are generally folded. Ollier and
Pain marvel how such planation could have occurred at all and
that is was so widespread: ‘The remarkable thing is that plains
of great perfection are ever made, despite all the obvious
possibilities of complications. But they are real, and planation
surfaces were widespread before the uplift of the many mountains
of Plio-Pleistocene age’ (p. 302). They are surprised, of
course, because the observed surfaces are inconsistent with
their uniformitarian worldview. Erosional processes today do not
produce the flat landscapes that were produced in the past.
Present processes roughen surfaces, forming rills, coulees and
valleys. Today, we observe that previously-planed surfaces are
dissected. Planed surfaces do not develop today, except on a
very local scale when perhaps a river suddenly shifts its course
and moves across tilted sedimentary rock.
Furthermore, the field relationships show that planation in the
past mostly occurred in the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene period
(p. 302), suggesting that it occurred rapidly : ‘There is
nothing very special about the climate in the Late Miocene-Early
Pliocene period when there often occurred planation that
suggests an increased erosion rate, and in any case the
mountains discussed are in a wide range of latitudinal and
climatic situations. At present, the cause of the observed high
rate of planation remains a mystery.’ Of course, their concept
of climate in the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene is based on
uniformitarian assumptions, which ignores the effects of the
Genesis Flood. A further mystery is that, within the
uniformitarian time scale, some planation surfaces are very old,
such as the planation surface of the Kimberly Plateau of north
central Australia that was planed in the Proterozoic and has
apparently not been covered by protecting sediments since then
(p. 27). It defies imagination how such a surface could have
remained so flat for 600 million years or more, when present
processes could dissect a continent and erode it to near sea
level in 10 to 33 million years. The presence of such ‘old’
planation surfaces is objective evidence that the dating
methods, both fossil and radiomentic, used to date the time of
planation are wrong. 3
Mountains uplifted globally in Plio-Pleistocene
Ollier and Pain show that after all the continents were planed,
they were uplifted and dissected. The authors essentially
conclude that the plains that were once near sea level in the
Miocene were uplifted to form the mountains we see today. They
believe this is the origin of nearly all mountains and have an
impressive amount of evidence to back up their conclusion. In
the mountains today we observe all stages of this past
dissection. Some planation surfaces were dissected completely
during uplift, leaving behind rough mountains with no sign of a
planation surface. In other mountains, the planation surface is
left on the top as an erosional remnant. Sometimes these
planation surfaces are at different altitudes in the mountains
due to differential uplift. The evidence for these planation
surface remnants is readily observable, even to the untrained
eye (pp. 128–130). The highest mountains in Montana, the
Beartooth Mountains, are an excellent example of this. They
display impressive flat topped granitic peaks at a height of
about 4,000 m. 4 The most controversial aspect of the authors’
geomorphological deductions is their contention that practically
all the uplift occurred in the Pliocene and Pleistocene, the
last two epochs of geological time! The huge Andes Mountains (p.
127) are but one example. Another is the Tibetan Plateau, which
is considered to be one vast erosion surface that uplifted in
the Pliocene-Pleistocene (pp. 128–129, 137–138). Furthermore
they present an impressive table of mountains from all over the
world that uplifted during this time frame (pp. 304–306). As the
mountains uplifted, the authors point out that some of them
spread laterally, thrusting rocks over the surrounding lowlands
(p. 12). Another name for this spreading is ‘mushroom
tectonics’. This would account for all the thrust faults, if
indeed they are real, that we often find at the edge of uplifts.
It is also likely that granite mountains were uplifted when the
granite was already solid (pp. 184–185). Do the authors, or
anybody else, know the cause of such recent vertical tectonics?
Does the lack of a mechanism nullify the authors’ field
deductions? The answer is no. They provide a list of 20 possible
mechanisms for vertical tectonics, none of which can be
demonstrated to be occurring today (p. 308). One strong
contender is isostasy after erosion, but the authors find much
evidence against this suggested mechanism: ‘But most other
mountains and plateaus tend to have very distinct edges,
suggesting uplift of distinct blocks, and to raise such blocks
by isostasy alone seems improbable’ (p. 286).
Plate tectonics explains very few mountains
One of their conclusions is quite controversial, namely that
plate tectonics explains very few mountains. Plate tectonics has
a difficult time explaining mountains on passive plate margins
and even on some spreading sites without the need to incorporate
secondary, ad hoc , assumptions into its paradigm (p. 14). Even
mountains within plates, such as the Ruwenzori Mountains of
Africa (p. 53) and the Ouachita Mountains in the central United
States (p. 109), are difficult to explain. They summarize: ‘A
great many mountains, plateaus and other landscape features have
no apparent relationship to plate tectonics situations’ (p.
297). They are skeptical of the plate tectonic idea for the
formation of isostatically balanced mountains by what is called
crustal thickening: ‘We do not equate either mountain building
or orogeny with crustal thickening, and suspect that few
The Andes mountains in Peru. The authors contend that the huge
Andes Mountains uplifted in the Pliocene-Pleistocene. TJ 16 (3)
2002 42 Book Reviews
other workers do so’ (p. 6). Ollier and Pain also assert that
plate tectonics has ignored planation and its implications,
especially the timing right before the Pliocene. A good example
of this is the Alps (p. 63) and the Central Cordillera of Spain
(p. 85). The authors attribute the formation of rifts, such as
the East African rift (p. 49), to fairly recent vertical
tectonics. They even state that the East African rift can be
traced to the Carlsberg Mid Ocean Ridge in the Indian Ocean: ‘As
noted in a previous section, the formation of swells seems to
initiate faulting, rifting and extension, and it is interesting
that the rift valley system of Africa can be traced continuously
to the Red Sea, and thence to the Carlsberg sub-oceanic ridge’
(p. 52). By this they are implying that vertical tectonics also
produced the mid-ocean ridges in the last periods of geological
time. Although the authors provide a list of 17 significant
problems with plate tectonics (pp. 298–300), they maintain that
they still believe in the paradigm: ‘There is overwhelming
evidence that the Atlantic Ocean has been formed by the drifting
apart of the continents that bound it ... We should make it
clear that we have no objection to plate tectonics in general,
for it explains many things. But we do object to the simplistic
explanation of mountains and their distribution’ (pp. 13, 272).
They simply suggest that there are additional processes acting
besides plate tectonics (p. 300). It is possible that the
concept of catastrophic plate tectonics occurring during the
Genesis Flood can explain some of the problems the authors have
raised with uniformitarian plate tectonics.
Philosophy lessons in science
As a result of the authors’ long experience, involving somewhat
controversial ideas, they have learned a number of important
lessons in the philosophy of science to which we creationists
can certainly relate. They mention how they have observed that
ruling paradigms do not tolerate other explanations, even if the
originators of these explanations still believe in the paradigm.
Ruling paradigms tend to censor anyone who dares to disagree,
even a little: ‘Another problem arises from orthodoxy. Anyone
who disagrees with the ruling theory is regarded as an ignorant
fool by the majority, and authoritarian orthodoxy even goes so
far as the suppression of publications that do not fit the
orthodox scenario (nowadays plate tectonics) ...’ (p. 314)
[parentheses theirs]. First, the authors have had their own work
rejected by referees because it was not couched within the
language of the paradigm (p. 301). Such pressure to conform also
causes researchers to blindly fall in line, like solders on the
march. Second, they complain that most data from geomorphology,
as well as some from geology and geophysics, is omitted or
suppressed ‘in favour of the grandiose tectonic picture’ (p.
123): ‘The latest obstacle to the flow of reason is an
increasing disregard for ground truth, or what used to be called
field evidence’ (p. 315). They predict that in the study of
mountains geomorphology will continue to be ignored (p. 310).
This is part of the ruling paradigm error, they say: ‘One of the
greatest, and commonest, errors in the history of science is the
fallacy of single cause’ (pp. 313–314). Third, in their opinion
Earth science has become too concerned with theory, models, and
dogma (p. xvii): ‘Indeed, the dead weight of orthodoxy and the
preference for models over ground truth that prevails today
suggest that we have less reason for optimism, not more’ (p.
312). Fourth, most scientists jump too quickly for an ultimate
mechanism with too little data. The authors suggest that a
better methodology would be patience to wait for the mechanism
to unfold: ‘If we first get the geometry right, then in time, we
might work out the kinematics, and if we know that we might,
just possibly, venture on the driving force’ (p. 314). To me,
this seems a sensible way of finding ultimate causes for the
rocks and fossils.
Authors’ field deductions fit well into the Recessive Stage of
the Flood
The authors radical field deductions of folding of strata, of
worldwide planation before the mid Pliocene, then uplift and
dissection of the planation surfaces, fits in neatly within the
Flood model, especially the Recessive Stage of the Flood. 5 – 7
The folding of strata can occur mostly during the Inundatory
Stage due to rapid sedimentation and tectonics in which huge
masses of consolidated to partly consolidated strata slide
downslope. It is interesting that the authors find analogs for
folded strata from mass movement along the continental margin.
In other words, the folds we now see in ancient rocks on the
continents likely happened underwater . And, as a bonus for
creationists, the authors suggest an origin for the vast amount
of carbonate rocks found in the strata: ‘Many lavas are very
rich in alkalis, sodium and potassium, and some are rich in
carbonate including the remarkable Oldoinyo Lengai in Kenya.
Carbonatite is a volcanic rock consisting largely of igneous
calcite and suggests vast accumulation of carbonate at the base
of the crust’ (p. 180). I know that some creationists have
proposed that carbonates were erupted during the ‘fountains of
the great deep’ or other tectonic activity. A vast accumulation
of carbonates at the base of the crust would not only be radical
from a uniformitarian standpoint, but also provide a source for
the large volume of carbonates in the sedimentary record. When
the water peaked around Day 150, powerful water currents would
likely have planed the continental strata, which would have been
in relatively shallow water due to recent deposition. These
powerful currents would have been caused by a number of
mechanisms, including the spin of the Earth acting on huge
continents, more than 2,500 km in extent, submerged less than
1,000 m below the sea surface. 8 The beginning of uplift during
the Abative Phase would also add a component of flow from the
center of rising sediments. With time, that flow would
predominate and produce more planation. The authors state that
the planation was marine in the Apennines of Italy (p. 72),
which is strongly contrary to the prevailing wisdom of subaerial
erosion. They also state that most strata, when deposited on a
planation surface or in a valley cut on that surface, are marine
. These observations were once interpreted as marine planation
by a transgressing shoreline, an idea popular in the 19 th
century (p. 234). The planation is also supposed to have been
rapid, within the uniformitarian system of course. This data
hints strongly that maybe all planations occurred rapidly
underwater, readily fitting in with the Genesis Flood. Ollier
and Pain hint at the radical possibility that granitic rocks
were solid when planed and uplifted. This is a deduction that I
am entertaining. An indication that uplifted granite masses were
solid, and probably never molten, is the existence of planation
surface remnants at the tops of many granitic mountains. 4 , 9
In order to be planed during the Flood before the great uplift
of the Recessive Stage of the Flood, it is reasonable that these
huge granitic masses would have been solid, or at least rigid,
before planation. The origin of mountains by great uplift and
dissection of the planed strata and granitic bodies is strong
support for the Recessive Stage of the Flood. Dissection of the
planed surfaces would be explained by a combination of strong
currents becoming more channelized and flow becoming
predominantly downslope towards the sinking ocean basins as the
uplift progressed. 10 It is especially significant that this
great mountain uplift from below or near sea level is in the
last periods of geological time, dated automatically into the
Pliocene and Pleistocene of the uniformitarian time scale. In
other words, this great worldwide uplift is the last great
geological, tectonic event to have occurred on the Earth (not
counting the Ice Age), and it occurred rapidly . The authors
admit that such deductions, the results of dozens of years of
field observations, are not in accord with the principle of
uniformitarianism, which requires geological processes to have
occurred continuously through geologic time. The dogma of
uniformitarianism, or modifications of it, have dominated
geological theory for over 200 years: ‘Uplift occurred over a
relatively short and distinct time. Some Earth process switched
on and created mountains after a period with little or no
significant uplift [to produce the planation]. This is a
deviation from uniformitarianism ... . We are seeing the results
of a distinct and remarkably young mountain building period.
This is a deviation from strict uniformitarianism’ (pp. 303,
306). What powerful support for the Flood, especially the
Recessive Stage, these authors have unwittingly provided with
their understanding of the origins of mountains.
References
1. Carey, S.W., Theories of the Earth and Universe—A History of
Dogma in the Earth Sciences , Stanford University Press,
Stanford, pp. 217–224, 1988. 2. Schmidt, C.J., Chase, R.B. and
Erslev, E.A. (Eds), Laramide Basement Deformation in the Rocky
Mountain Foreland of the Western United States, Geological
Society of America Special Paper 280 , 1993. 3. Oard, M.J.,
Antiquity of landforms: objective evidence that dating methods
are wrong, CEN Tech. J 14 (1):35–39, 2000. 4. Oard, Ref. 3,
Figure 1, p. 36. 5. Walker, T., A Biblical geological model; in:
Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International
Conference on Creationism , Creation Science Fellowship,
Pittsburgh, pp. 581–592, 1994. 6. Oard, M.J., Vertical tectonics
and the drainage of Flood water: a model for the middle and late
diluvian period—Part I, CRSQ 38 (1): 3–17, 2001. 7. Oard, M.J.,
Vertical tectonics and the drainage of Flood water: a model for
the middle and late diluvial period—Part II, CRSQ 38 (2):79–95,
2001. 8. Barnette, D.W. and Baumgardner, J.R., Patterns of ocean
circulation over the continents during Noah’s Flood in: Walsh,
R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on
Creationism , Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, pp.
77–86, 1994. 9. Oard, Ref. 6, Figure 14–16, pp. 13–14. 10. Oard,
Ref. 6, Figure 3, p. 9.
2. Event/Era Stage Duration Phase New-World 4000 years Modern
300 years Residual Flood Recessive 100 days Dispersive 200 days
Abative 30 days Zenithic Inundatory 20 days Ascending 10 days
Eruptive Lost-World 1700 years Lost-World Creation Formative 2
days Biotic 2 days Derivative Foundational 2 days Ensuing 0 days
Original The Biblical geological model as proposed by Tas
Walker. Mountain building may have occured during the Recessive
Stage of the Flood.
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#Post#: 139--------------------------------------------------
Re: From Creation.com
By: Admin Date: February 19, 2017, 12:13 am
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The geological column is a general Flood order with many
exceptions Michael J. Oard
HTML http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j24_2/j24_2_78-82.pdf
JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (2) 2010
Adapted from: Oard, M., The geological column is a general flood
order with many exceptions
in: Reed, J.K. and Oard, M.J. (Eds.), The Geologic Column:
Perspectives Within Diluvial Geology , Creation Research
Society, Chino Valley, AZ, ch. 7, pp. 99–119, 2006; with
permission from the Creation Research Society.
There is a degree of controversy in creationist circles about
the relationship between the evolutionary geological column and
Flood geology. Some creationists hold that the geological column
represents the exact sequence of deposition during the Flood as
well as the post-Flood period. The only change needed is to
shorten the uniformitarian timescale. Other creationists want to
throw out the entire geological column. Still others believe
that it is a general sequence with many exceptions. In a
previous paper, 1 I addressed the question of whether the
geological column was indeed a global sequence. I showed that
local stratigraphic sections seem to line up with the general
order of the geological column at hundreds of locations around
the world. But there are many problems with the details. One
obvious problem is that the geological column is a vertical or
stratigraphic representation that has been abstracted from rock
units that are mainly found laterally adjacent to each other in
the field. In addition, new fossil discoveries continue to
expand the fossil stratigraphic ranges on which global
correlations are based. These problems are compounded by the
methods that geologists have used to try to incorporate the
fossil evidence into their uniformitarian paradigm. These
methods include giving different names to the same or a similar
organism when found in ‘different-aged’ strata. In addition,
there are various techniques for handling fossils that are found
in anomalous locations and fossils that are found out of order.
These problems mean that creationist geologists should be
cautious about accepting the geological column as it stands and
relating it directly to the Flood. I advocate viewing the rocks
and fossils through ‘Flood glasses’— through the actual
mechanism that produced the rocks and fossils, the Genesis
Flood. Why look at the rocks and fossils through a false
philosophical system based on the hypotheses of
uniformitarianism, an old earth, evolution, and naturalism? By
using a geological Flood model we can independently evaluate how
valid the geological column is to Flood geology. Since I believe
that the geological column is a general sequence of the Flood, I
expect to find some overlap between a Flood classification and
the geological column. I advocate the model or classification of
Walker, 2 which is similar to the model derived by Whitcomb and
Morris in The Genesis Flood. 3 Although Froede produced a
similar model, 4 I prefer Walker’s model mainly because it is
more developed with defining criteria for his stages and phases.
Klevberg modified Walker’s timescale for the stages to
correspond with the Flood peaking on Day 150, 5 which seems to
be the Scriptural position and also corresponds to the 21 weeks
of prevailing and the 31 weeks of assuaging in the
Whitcomb-Morris model. By working in this way I have found that
the geological column is a general Flood sequence but with many
exceptions. Does the geological column represent the Flood
depositional sequence ? In examining fossils and fossil
successions with regard to the Flood, we must distinguish
between animals that survived the Flood and those that did not.
This distinction will help determine whether a fossil was buried
by the Flood or is post-Flood. The animals that God brought
onboard the Ark were a male and female of each unclean kind and
seven of each clean kind. These animals had to be terrestrial
and breath air (Genesis 7:21, 22). The Genesis kind cannot be
equated with modern species in many cases. 6 If the kind is at
the genus level, the ark needed only 16,000 animals, 7 primarily
mammals, birds, and reptiles. Many other organisms could have
survived the Flood outside the Ark. Therefore, all mammals,
reptiles (including dinosaurs), and likely all birds had to be
dead by the time the water started retreating
Whether the geological column represents an exact sequence of
Flood events or not can be resolved by applying a geological
model that is based on biblical presuppositions. Walker ’ s
model is ideally suited to analyzing the rock record because it
is based on the true mechanism for the deposition of the strata
and incorporates logical stages and phases that can be
identified in the field. Comparing Walker’ s model to the
geological column reveals several surprises. First, sedimentary
rocks labeled Precambrian (if from the Flood), Paleozoic, and
Mesozoic strata are early Flood. Second, Cenozoic strata can be
early Flood, late Flood, or post-Flood depending upon the
location and the particular fossil used to define the Cenozoic.
Third, Flood deposition is highly nonlinear with a large
percentage of strata deposited early in the Flood. This means
the geological column is a general order of Flood deposition but
highly nonlinear and with many exceptions.
off the land around Day 150 (Genesis 7:22–8:3). So, evidence of
a live mammal or reptile would indicate either an early Flood or
post-Flood time. Marine organisms, such as foraminifers, could
potentially represent early Flood, late Flood, or post Flood.
1) Walker ’ s model
To bypass all the confusion with the geological column, I
advocate Walker’s model of the Flood (figure 1). 2 Viewing the
strata through flawed uniformitarian concepts does not seem
logical. So, we need to put on our ‘Flood glasses’ when looking
at the rocks and fossils. Walker’s model was derived directly
from the Bible, seperate from the geological column or any other
philosophical presupposition. It also provides a template for
examining how the geological column relates to the Flood. When
Walker’s model is applied it is at odds with even the relative
dating of the column. For example, Walker classified the
basement rocks around the Brisbane area as being from the
Eruptive Phase of the Inundatory Stage of the Flood— its very
beginning, even though these rocks are generally dated as middle
Paleozoic in the geological column. 8 Walker then assigned the
shale and sandstone deposits of the Great Artesian Basin to the
upper Zenithic Phase of the Inundatory Stage (just before the
Floodwater peaked). 9 The strata of this basin cover an area of
1,800,000 km 2 and are over 2,000 m in thickness. They are dated
as mostly Jurassic and Cretaceous in the geological column, but
represent the first half of the Flood. Thus, in eastern
Australia, the Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata are early Flood.
2) Precambrian to Mesozoic strata in the Rocky Mountains
In the Rocky Mountain region of the United States, Precambrian
sedimentary rocks commonly outcrop in mountain ranges and their
thickness indicates that they
Figure 1. Walker ’ s biblical geological model, modified by
Klevberg . Postdiluvial Era (4,300 years) Time-Scale Rock-Scale
Postdiluvial Era 4,000 years DURATION STAGE EVENT/ERA PHASE
∼ 300 years
Modern Residual Zenethic Ascending Eruptive 40 days Dispersive
Abative Antediluvian Era 1,700 years
Antediluvial Biotic 2 days 2 days Derivative 2 days Ensuing 0
days Primordial Inundatory Recessive ca. 220 days ca. 110 days
Formative Foundational Antediluvian Era (1,700 years) Creation
Event The Deluge 2.300 The Deluge Creation Week TIME -ROCK
TRANSFORMATION
Papers 80 JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (2) 2010
represent deposits from large, isolated basins that have
uplifted. Examples include the Belt Supergroup that forms the
northern Rockies of western Montana and northern and central
Idaho, the Uinta Mountains in northeast Utah, and the
Precambrian sedimentary rocks in the eastern Grand Canyon.
Whether these Precambrian sedimentary rocks are pre-Flood or
Flood has not yet been resolved. Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata
can form large sheets over extensive areas such as the Great
Plains, but they are generally broken and tilted in the
mountains in the western United States, except for the Colorado
Plateau. It is possible that the Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata
in the Rocky Mountains were once continuous over the region like
on the Colorado Plateau. Tracks are one of Walker’s defining
criteria for the Inundatory Stage. 10 The Mesozoic of the Rocky
Mountains and High Plains has millions of dinosaur tracks, as
well as thousands of eggs, on flat bedding planes. It seems
obvious that these tracks and eggs are from the Flood, and since
they represent live dinosaurs, the Mesozoic in this area would
be from the Inundatory Stage, early in the Flood. 11 So, these
Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata were deposited early in the Flood,
similar to eastern Australia. Although the general sequence of
Paleozoic to Mesozoic seems valid, the periods within those eras
may not represent an exact sequence, since the Devonian in one
place may be deposited before the Cambrian in another.
3) The ‘ Cenozoic ’ can be Early Flood, Late Flood or Post Flood
The ‘Cenozoic’, on the other hand, is the most problematic. 12
It generally fills basins in the Rocky Mountains and outcrops as
sheets on the High Plains. There are indications of erosion of
many hundreds and even a few thousand meters of rock in these
areas. 5,13,14 The high areas of the western United States are a
scoured surface. That is why there is so much bedrock close to
the surface in those areas. There is clear evidence for sheet
erosion followed by channelized erosion, which correspond to
Walker’s two phases of the Recessional Stage of the Flood. This
erosion must have occurred mainly in the Recessional Stage of
the Flood between Days 150 and 371. So, much of the Cenozoic
strata not eroded in the Rocky Mountain basins and High Plains
was likely deposited during the Inundatory Stage of the Flood.
Some of this strata is dated late Cenozoic in the geological
column, 15 implying that ‘late Cenozoic’ strata can be early
Flood! There also are mammal tracks in some of the Cenozoic
strata in these basins that reinforce the deduction that most of
the remaining Cenozoic strata were deposited in the Inundatory
Stage. 16,17 Based on Walker’s model, tracks of mammals on Flood
strata must have occurred in the Inundatory Stage. This evidence
indicates that practically all strata, clear up to the Pliocene,
in the higher areas of the western United States were deposited
in the first half of the Flood during the Inundatory Stage.
Sediments eroded from the high areas of the western United
States were redeposited far to the west and east. Eroded debris
would have been deposited in deeper areas where currents would
decrease. Strong currents eroding the uplifting western United
States would have pulverized much of the rock, but the most
resistant rocks would have been carried far from their source
and deposited as a lag or as basin fill. The most resistant rock
of significant volume is quartzite. Quartzite cobbles and
boulders, well rounded by water, are found over 1,000 km to the
east and 700 km to the west of their Rocky Mountain sources.
18–21 These quartzites are practically all dated as Cenozoic by
mainstream geologists, based on included mammal fossils,
especially in interbeds, but they would be part of the
Recessional or late Stage of the Flood. Furthermore, the eroded
strata would have been redeposited on the continental shelf off
the western US—a Recessional Stage feature of the Flood. 2,22
The eroded material probably would also have been deposited in
basins near the coast, such as the lower Mississippi River
Valley. Much of the Cenozoic strata of Washington, Oregon, and
California could be Recessional Stage sedimentation. Mammals,
which are found in Cenozoic high western U.S. basins, should be
mostly pulverized by the powerful recessional stage currents and
turbulence, which Klevberg and Oard estimated would have flowed
over 30 m/sec. 23 The strata in these areas are generally dated
as “Cenozoic” by microorganisms and terrestrial mammals. These
Cenozoic strata would be a late Flood or Recessional Stage
feature.
Figure 2. The conformable contact between the Precambrian Belt
Supergroup, Lahood conglomerate (bottom right), with the
conglomeritic Cambrian Flathead Sandstone (upper left) in the
steeping dipping strata (generally about 60 degrees to the
northeast) near the top of the Bridger Mountains, northeast of
Bozeman, Montana (view southeast). There is one billion years of
missing uniformitarian time at the contact.
Papers 81 JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (2) 2010
Massive Recessional Stage erosion may also explain sparse human
fossils in sedimentary rocks. If human remains were mostly
deposited in the upper sedimentary layers by Day 150, these
layers would have been heavily eroded from currently high areas
of Earth, pulverized, and deposited over lower areas towards the
continual edges including the shelves. 24 There is also the
likelihood that some ‘Cenozoic’ sediment on the bottom of the
ocean, mostly dated by microfossils, is post-Flood, although
microfossils could have been laid down early in the Flood, late
in the Flood, or afterwards. Microorganisms would have
proliferated in the oceans during the Recessional Stage of the
Flood because of the huge amount of nutrients flowing into the
ocean and mixing at all depths. High microorganism productivity
would be expected to continue after the Flood due to the warm
ocean and rapid overturning during the Ice Age that would help
keep nutrient levels abundant in the upper layers of the ocean.
25 The Flood probably deposited the deeper sediments while the
upper sediments are likely post-Flood, although ocean bottom
reworking would result in exceptions. 26,27 Some Paleocene ocean
bottom sediments may be post-Flood, while some Pliocene
sediments could be from the Flood, based on uncertainties in
evolutionary microorganism classification. Another indicator of
post-Flood Cenozoic sediments on the bottom of the ocean is
ice-rafted material. Ice rafting into the ocean would be
expected in the middle to late Ice Age because of the need for
sufficient time for glaciers and ice sheets to build and spread
to the oceans, which were warm at the beginning of the Ice Age.
25,28 Ice rafted debris (if the interpretation is correct) is
found in sediment dated by microfossils as Oligocene and
Miocene. 29 Some of the sediment from the early Ice Age could be
dated as Paleocene or Eocene by uniformitarians. If the oxygen
isotope/temperature relation holds generally true for ocean
bottom microorganisms, much of the Cenozoic shows a cooling
trend, as would be expected in the oceans during the post-Flood
Ice Age. 30 So, in the Flood model ‘Cenozoic’ can be early
Flood, late Flood or post-Flood, depending upon the location.
This comparison is based on logical deductions from Walker’s
biblical geological model and the post-Flood Ice Age. The
‘Cenozoic’, as a worldwide part of the geological column, can
refer to almost any specific time in the Flood.
4) Nonlinear Flood deposition
Many creationists have assumed a linear relationship between the
geological column and the Flood and post- Flood period with the
‘Cenozoic being’ late Flood or post- Flood. 31 However, based on
Walker’s model and reasonable defining criteria for his stages
and phases, Flood deposition appears highly nonlinear with
respect to the geological column. Practically all the current
strata in the high western United States (and probably some of
that eroded) were deposited early in the Flood. It is highly
unlikely that ‘Cenozoic’ strata in the high western United
States are post-Flood or even late Flood. 13,15,32,33 Thus, a
vast amount of deposition occurred in the western United States
early in the Flood. This has serious implications for any Flood
model. Most creationist believe that the most violent part of
the Flood was at the beginning with the start of the
catastrophic mechanism, while the latter half of the Flood was
more subdued and mainly an erosional event caused by
differential up or down motion of the crust and upper mantle.
12,14 This generally goes along with the geological energy curve
of Reed et al . 34
Conclusion
When we consider the question of how well the geological column
represents a Flood order of deposition, we need to decide
whether the column is an exact sequence of the chronology of the
Flood or if it should be disposed of entirely. At the outset, we
should be looking at the rocks and fossils by the mechanism that
deposited them. In other words, we should begin with a system
that treats the biblical Flood as the real event and not with a
system that was set up assuming the Flood never occurred and
that Earth is billions of years old. That is why I recommend
Walker’s classification or model, which is based on reasonable
deductions from Scripture. Walker uses classification criteria
for his phases and stages of the Flood. When we apply Walker’s
model to the field evidence, we find that much of the
Precambrian, Paleozoic, and Mesozoic strata were laid down in
the Inundatory Stage or the first 150 days of the Flood. The
Cenozoic strata can be early Flood, late Flood, or post- Flood
depending upon what particular index fossil was used to classify
the strata and the location. In other words, Flood sedimentation
is highly nonlinear with most sediment deposited in the
Inundatory Stage, as the Floodwater was rising on the earth. The
Recessive Stage represents mainly continental erosion by
receding Floodwater and deposition on the continental margins.
Figure 3. Tertiary cooling curve for the bottom of the ocean off
Antarctica based on oxygen isotopes of benthic foraminifera from
Deep Sea Drilling Project sites 277, 279 and 281.
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 5 10 15 20 0 Temperature o C
This means that the geological column sits in the middle
position between the two extremes of either an absolute global
sequence or total irrelevance. The geological column is a
general order of Flood deposition but highly nonlinear and with
many exceptions.
References
Abbreviation: CRSQ = Creation Research Society Quarterly 1.
Oard, M.J., Is the geologic column a global sequence? Journal of
Creation 24 (1):56–64, 2010. 2. Walker, T. A biblical geological
model: in; Walsh, R.E. (ed.), Proceedings of the Third
International Conference on Creationism, (technical symposium
sessions), Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp.
581–592, 1994. 3. Whitcomb Jr, J.C. and Morris, H.M., The
Genesis Flood , Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1961. 4.
Froede Jr, C.R., A proposal for a creationist geological
timescale, CRSQ 32 :90–94, 1995. 5. Oard, M., Vertical tectonics
and the drainage of Floodwater: a model for the Middle and Late
Diluvian Period—Part I, CRSQ 38 (1):3–17, 2001; p. 7. 6.
Woodmorappe, J., A diluviological treatise on the stratigraphic
separation of fossils: in; Studies in Flood Geology, 2nd
edition, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, pp. 23–75,
1999; p. 24. 7. Woodmorappe, J., Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study
, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, 1996. The number
of animals required on the Ark depends on what represents a
biblical “kind”. Woodmorappe used the genus for the sake of his
calculations, yielding 16,000 animals, and that represented a
conservative position. He noted that the biblical kind may well
be at the “family” level in which case the number of animals
would only be several thousand. 8. Walker, T., The basement
rocks of the Brisbane area, Australia: where do they fit in the
creation model? Journal of Creation 10 (2):241–257, 1996. 9.
Walker, T., The Great Artesian Basins, Australia, Journal of
Creation 10 (3):379–390, 1996. 10. Walker, ref. 2, p. 589. 11.
Oard, M.J., The Missoula Flood Controversy and the Genesis Flood
, Creation Research Society Books, Chino Valley, AZ, pp.
103–105, 2004. 12. Oard, M., Vertical tectonics and the drainage
of Floodwater: a model for the Middle and Late Diluvian
Period—Part II, CRSQ 38 (2):79–95, 2001. 13. Oard, M., Where is
the Flood/post-Flood boundary in the rock record? Journal of
Creation 10 (2):258–278, 1996. 14. Oard, M.J. and Klevberg, P.,
Deposits remaining from the Genesis Flood: rim gravels of
Arizona, CRSQ 42 (1):1–17, 2005. 15. Thompson, G.R., Fields,
R.W. and Alt, D., Land-based evidence for Tertiary climatic
variations: Northern Rockies, Geology 10 :413–417, 1982. 16.
Lockley, M. and Hunt, A.P., Dinosaur Tracks and Other Fossil
Footprints in the Western United States, Columbia University
Press, New York, 1995. 17. Oard, M.J., Dinosaurs in the Flood: a
response, Journal of Creation 12 (1):69–86, 1998; pp. 69–78. 18.
Oard, M.J., Hergenrather, J. and Klevberg, P., Flood transported
quartzites: Part 1—east of the Rocky Mountains, Journal of
Creation 19 (3):76–90, 2005. 19. Oard, M.J., Hergenrather, J.
and Klevberg, P., Flood transported quartzites: Part 2—west of
the Rocky Mountains, Journal of Creation 20 (2):71–81, 2006. 20.
Oard, M.J., Hergenrather, J. and Klevberg, P., Flood transported
quartzites: Part 3—failure of uniformitarian interpretations,
Journal of Creation 20 (3):78–86, 2006. 21. Oard, M.J.,
Hergenrather, J. and Klevberg, P., Flood transported quartzites:
Part 4—diluvial interpretations, Journal of Creation 21
(1):86–91, 2007. 22. Spencer, W.R. and Oard, M.J., The
Chesapeake Bay impact and Noah’s Flood, CRSQ 41 (3):206–215,
2004. 23. Klevberg, P. and Oard. M.J., Paleohydrology of the
Cypress Hills Formation and Flaxville gravel: in; Walsh, R.E.
(ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on
Creationism (technical symposium sessions), Creation Science
Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 361–378, 1998. 24. Austin, S.A.,
Baumgardner, J.R., Humphreys, D.R., Snelling, A.A., Vardiman, L.
and Wise, K.P., Catastrophic plate tectonics: a global Flood
model of Earth history. In Walsh, R.E. (editor), Proceedings of
the Third International Conference on Creationism (technical
symposium sessions), Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh,
PA, pp. 609–621, 1994; p. 614. 25. Oard, M.J., An Ice Age Caused
by the Genesis Flood, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas,
TX, pp. 70–75, 1990. 26. Thiede, J., Reworking in Upper Mesozoic
and Cenozoic central Pacific deep-sea sediments, Nature 289
:667–670, 1981. 27. Woodmorappe, J., An anthology of matters
significant to creationism and diluviology: report 2: in;
Studies in Flood Geology , (2nd ed.), Institute for Creation
Research, Dallas, TX, pp. 79–101, 1999. 28. Oard, M.J., Frozen
in Time: The Woolly Mammoths, the Ice Age, and the Biblical Key
to Their Secrets, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2004. 29.
Oard, ref. 18, p. 81. 30. Vardiman, L. Sea-Floor Sediments and
the Age of the Earth , Institute for Creation Research, Dallas,
TX, 1996. 31. Garner, P., Robinson, S., Garton, M. and Tyler,
D., Comments on polar dinosaurs and the Genesis Flood, CRSQ 32
(4):232–234, 1996. 32. Oard, M.J. and Whitmore, J.H., The Green
River Formation of the west-central United States: Flood or
post-Flood? Journal of Creation 20 (1):45–85, 2006. 33. Oard,
M.J., Defining the Flood/post-Flood boundary in sedimentary
rocks, Journal of Creation 21 (1):98–110, 2007. 34. Reed, J.K.,
Froede Jr, C.R., and Bennett, C.B., A biblical Christian
framework for Earth history research: Part IV—the role of
geologic energy in interpreting the stratigraphic record, CRSQ
33 (2):97–101, 1996.
Michael J. Oard has an M.S. in Atmospheric Science from the
University of Washington and is now retired after working as a
professional meteorologist with the US National Weather Service
in Montana for 30 years. He is the author of A n Ice Age Caused
by the Genesis Flood, Ancient Ice Ages or Gigantic Submarine
Landslides ? , Frozen in Time and Flood by Design . He serves on
the board of the Creation Research Society.
---
Limestone caves: A Result of Noah’s Flood?
by Robert Doolan, John Mackay, Dr Andrew Snelling and Dr Allen
Hallby
HTML http://creation.com/limestone-caves
Late one summer’s afternoon in 1901, a cowboy named Jim White
was riding through the arid foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains
in south-east New Mexico. Suddenly he was startled by a huge
black cloud rising from the ground in front of him. He reined
his horse to a stop. This cloud was not like any he had seen
before, so he decided to see what made it different.
As he galloped closer, Jim realised this funnel shaped cloud was
formed by a massive swarm of bats! Millions of them were
spiralling out of the sandy hillside. Jim was puzzled. What were
so many bats doing here? Where did they come from? He resolved
to find out.
With a battered kerosene lamp and a rope ladder, Jim descended
deep into a hole he found in the mountain side. He found tunnels
and passageways. Warily he followed one tunnel. Soon it led him
to the bats’ resting place. The floor was slippery with bats’
droppings.
Cautiously Jim crept back. He followed another passage. Before
long this tunnel opened up to reveal something amazing. In the
flickering light of his lamp, Jim realised he was in an enormous
room. He could see huge stone ‘icicles’ hanging from the high
ceiling. Great pillars rose from the floor. Slender sticks of
stone were everywhere, and in a far corner he could just make
out a pond with stone ‘lily pads’ floating on its surface. It
looked like Ali Baba’s cave - only these treasures were in
stone.
Over the following years, Jim found miles of connecting
corridors in the cave, and bigger and more beautiful limestone
chambers. His cave was like a glorious stone palace. Jim White,
the ‘limestone cowboy’, had discovered Carlsbad Caverns, the
most spectacular cave in North America, and one of the most
spectacular in the world.
Carlsbad Caverns’ largest room, called the Big Room, is so large
it could contain almost 50 basketball courts. In one area the
ceiling is higher than a 30-storey building. In 1924, US
President Calvin Coolidge declared these spectacular limestone
caves a national monument.
But how did such beautiful limestone caves form? When did their
formation occur? Did they really form over huge time spans? Or
can they be explained in the framework of Noah’s Flood not many
thousands of years ago?
In the Beginning
New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns have been said to have begun
forming some 60 million years ago by the action of groundwater
on the original beds of limestone.1 As acid rainwater fell on
the limestone beds, it ‘nibbled’ away at the rock until
hair-thin cracks appeared. More rain trickled down, enlarging
the cracks and forming paths. Paths widened into tunnels.
Tunnels crisscrossed and grew into rooms.2
That many limestone caves formed by the solution process is
indicated by four types of geological evidence.
1. Modern limestone caves often show evidence of ongoing
solution - the chemical composition of groundwater leaving caves
often confirms this. Continually growing stalactites and
stalagmites within caves prove that solution is occurring above
the caves.
2. The shapes of structures in the limestone layers within
caves often resemble structures produced in solution
experiments. This is particularly so at the intersections of
fractures in the limestone layers that geologists call joints,
where shapes that have been produced can be predicted on the
basis of solution kinetics theory.3
3. The passages in limestone caves usually follow joints,
fractures, and the level of the land surface in such a way as to
suggest that the permeability of the limestone layers, that is,
the obvious paths along which groundwater must have flowed, has
influenced the position of cave passages.4
4. Caves resembling those found in limestone do not occur in
insoluble, non-limestone rocks. The apparent causal relationship
implies that some characteristic of the limestone (i.e. its
solubility) has affected the occurrence of the caves.
That solution therefore is a major factor in the formation of
limestone caves appears to be well substantiated. Most
geologists, however, would believe that these solution processes
take millions of years to form caves.
But millions of years are not necessary for limestone cave
formation. Geologist Dr Steve Austin, of the Institute for
Creation Research in San Diego, California, has studied water
chemistry and flow rates in a large cave-containing area in
central Kentucky. He concluded that a cave 59 metres long and
one metre square in the famous Mammoth Cave Upland region of
Kentucky could form in one year!5 If even remotely similar rates
of formation occurred elsewhere, huge caverns obviously could
form in a very short time.
Dr Austin proposes that the high rate of solution of limestone
in that area should cause concern to geologists who believe that
slow, uniform processes have brought about formation of such
caves. In two million years - the assumed duration of the
Pleistocene Epoch and the inferred age of many caves - a layer
of limestone more than 100 metres thick ‘could be completely
dissolved off of Kentucky (assuming present rates and
conditions).6
So how could limestone caves form, using a catastrophic model of
earth’s history which includes acceptance of a world-wide Flood?
Model for Caves Origin
The problem is of course that we are attempting to understand
the origin of limestone caves for which the evidence of the
events forming them has been largely removed. But this problem
confronts all scientists endeavouring to explain the formation
of limestone caves. Nonetheless, there would be general
agreement over the processes of formation, but not the rate of
formation. Dr Austin’s studies, plus our own, convince us that
the following model for limestone cave formation is entirely
feasible within the short time framework of a recent worldwide
catastrophic Flood, based on the available verifiable evidence.
First, the limestone layers have to be laid down. Dr Austin
believes most major limestone strata accumulated during the
Flood.(7) The primary reason for this belief is that most of the
major limestone strata either contain large numbers of
catastrophically buried fossils (often corals and shellfish) or
are in a sequence of other strata that contain large numbers of
catastrophically buried fossils.
As a layer of lime sediment was deposited, it would have been
buried rapidly under huge amounts of other sediments. The weight
on top of the lime sediments would compact them, and tend to
expel the water they contained. Fluid pressure in the sediments
would have been great, but lack of a direct escape exit would
retard water loss and tend to prevent sediments from completely
drying out and thus slow down the process of turning to stone.
The major water loss would probably be through joints (internal
cracks) formed while the sediments were hardening.
Second, as the Flood waters receded, uplift and other earth
movements would have occurred as implied by the statements in
Psalm 104:6-9.8 Thus such earth movements would fold and tilt
the sediment layers all over the earth so that concurrent and
subsequent erosion would have worn the upper layers down to a
new level. The layers of lime sediments would now again be near
the surface. Continuing earth movements would cause movement on
the joints and build up fluid pressure; the removal of the
overlying sediment layers would probably have speeded up both
compaction and fluid outflow from the partly hardened sediments.
Pressure would be highest near the surface, causing sediment to
be ‘piped out’, that is, removed along the joints where the rock
would have been weakest. As the joint opened, channels for both
vertical and horizontal water flow would appear.
Third, when the Flood waters had receded completely, the
groundwater level of the area would not be immediately in
balance, and so horizontal flow would be considerable. Acids
from decaying organic matter at the surface, and below, would
tend to move to just below the water table, where the fastest
horizontal flow would be occurring. Solution of newly hardened
limestone would occur mainly in horizontal channels just below
the water table. Conditions ideal for solution of limestone just
below the water table would also be helped by the mixing with
the groundwater of these carbon dioxide rich, oxygen poor,
organic rich, highly saline waters percolating down from the
surface. This would then develop a cave system at a particular
level.
Fourth, when the excess groundwater had been largely drained
away and the caves dissolved out, the water table would then be
at a lower level so that the caves would become filled with air
instead of water. Such conditions coupled with continued
downward drainage of excess surface and nearsurface waters would
finally bring the rapid deposition of stalactites, stalagmites,
and flowstone in the cave systems.
Conclusion and References
In this model of cave origin, there seems to be no major
obstacle to a short time period for the solution of limestone
caves. Caves need not have formed slowly over many thousands or
millions of years, but could have formed rapidly during the
closing stages of, and after, the world-wide Flood of Noah
several thousand years ago.
References
The New Book of Knowledge, Grolier Incorporated, New York,
1973, Vol. 3, p. 153. Article: Caves and Caverns.
Ibid.
Lange, A.L., Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Inc., Chicago, Vol. 3, 1977, p. 1026. Article: Caves
and CaveSystems.
Moore, G.W., The Encyclopedia of Geomorphology, R.W. Fairbridge
(ed.), Reinhold Book Co., New York, 1968, pp. 652–653. Article:
Limestone Caves; Thornbury, W.D., Principles of Geomorphology,
John Wiley, New York, 2nd ed., 1959, pp. 324–331.
Steven A. Austin, Origin of Limestone Caves, Impact article No.
79, Institute for Creation Research, San Diego, January 1980.
Ibid.
Ibid.
For fuller comments on this subject see Snelling, A.A., and
Malcolm, D.E., 1987. Earth’s Unique Topography, Creation Ex
Nihilo (this issue).
---
The heritage trail at Siccar Point, Scotland
Commemorating an idea that did not work
by Tas Walker
HTML http://creation.com/siccar-point-trail
Ciccar-point
High above the cliffs on the Scottish coast—60 km east of
Edinburgh—is an interpretive billboard that overlooks a rocky
point.1 It is part of a heritage trail opened in 2006,
celebrating the life of James Hutton, a local farmer and
physician who became known as the ‘father of modern geology’.2
He proposed the geological philosophy of uniformitarianism—that
present geological processes are the key to understanding the
rocks.
Hutton assumed Noah’s Flood never happened. He did not
appreciate the enormity of that global catastrophe, which
involved faulting, folding, and immense deposition and erosion.
The locals are keen to capitalize on Siccar Point, claiming it
is the most important geological site in the world.2 The story
goes that these rocks led Hutton to conclude the earth was not
made in six days. Rather, faulting and folding were important
processes in the evolution of the landscape.3 The sign at the
site says the rocks proved geological time was virtually
unlimited, contrary to the few thousand years, which most people
believed at that time.1
But Hutton did not discover deep time, he assumed it. That was
partly because Hutton’s knowledge of geology in the late 1700s
was seriously limited. He did not know that the lower Silurian
rocks were turbidite beds, deposited rapidly from underwater
density currents that sped across the ocean floor as fast as 100
km (60 miles) per hour.4 Neither did he know the upper strata
were of a terrestrial origin, deposited from a vast expanse of
fast flowing water that covered a large part of the continent,
depositing thick, cross-bedded strata.5,6
But most significantly, Hutton assumed Noah’s Flood never
happened. He did not appreciate the enormity of that global
catastrophe, which involved faulting, folding, and immense
deposition and erosion. During the Flood, the rocks at Siccar
Point were eroded in days or weeks, not over millions of years.
Hutton is hailed as a father of modern geology for his
philosophy of uniformitarianism, but ironically geologists now
acknowledge that uniformitarianism does not work. Toward the end
of his career, Derek Ager, professor of geology at Swansea,
Wales, said of uniformitarianism, “We have allowed ourselves to
be brain-washed into avoiding any interpretation of the past
that involves extreme and what might be termed ‘catastrophic’
processes.”7
Hutton’s friend (and popularizer) John Playfair, who accompanied
him by boat to Siccar Point in 1788, is famous for his
impressions of that trip. He is quoted on the sign. “The mind
seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time.”
However, as the son of a Presbyterian minister, it is
unfortunate that Playfair did not connect his Bible with the
world around him. A better response would have been, “The mind
was sobered to look upon the enormity of God’s judgment at the
time of Noah.”
References and notes
Interpretation board, Siccar Point;
geograph.org.uk/photo/2143249.
International interest in new James Hutton trail, Berwickshire
News, 21 June 2006;
berwickshirenews.co.uk/news/local-headlines/international-intere
st-in-new-james-hutton-trail-1-237894.
Siccar Point, Gazetteer for Scotland, 2011;
scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst5590.html.
Fine, I.V. et al., The Grand Banks landslide-generated tsunami
of November 18, 1929: preliminary analysis and numerical
modelling, Marine Geology 215:45–57, 2005.
Browne, M., et al., Stratigraphical Framework for the Devonian
(Old Red Sandstone) Rocks of Scotland south of a line from Fort
William to Aberdeen, British Geological Survey, Research Report
RR 01 04, p. 50, 2002; nora.nerc.ac.uk/3231/1/Devonian[1].pdf
For a detailed geological analysis of Siccar Point see: Walker,
T., Unmasking a long-age icon, Creation 27(1):50–55, 2004;
creation.com/siccarpoint.
Ager, D., The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, Macmillan,
London, p. 70, 1993.
After this the landscape was eroded by ice sheets in the
post-Flood Ice Age.
---
Can Flood geology explain thick chalk beds?
by Andrew A. Snelling
HTML http://creation.com/can-flood-geology-explain-thick-chalk-beds
Most people would have heard of, or seen (whether in person or
in photographs), the famous White Cliffs of Dover in southern
England. The same beds of chalk are also found along the coast
of France on the other side of the English Channel. The chalk
beds extend inland across England and northern France, being
found as far north and west as the Antrim Coast and adjoining
areas of Northern Ireland. Extensive chalk beds are also found
in North America, through Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee
(the Selma Chalk), in Nebraska and adjoining states (the
Niobrara Chalk), and in Kansas (the Fort Hayes Chalk).1
The Latin word for chalk is creta. Those familiar with the
geological column and its evolutionary time-scale will recognize
this as the name for one of its periods—the Cretaceous. Because
most geologists believe in the geological evolution of the
earth’s strata and features over millions of years, they have
linked all these scattered chalk beds across the world into this
so-called ‘chalk age’, that is, a supposedly great period of
millions of years of chalk bed formation.
So What Is Chalk?
Porous, relatively soft, fine-textured and somewhat friable,
chalk normally is white and consists almost wholly of calcium
carbonate as the common mineral calcite. It is thus a type of
limestone, and a very pure one at that. The calcium carbonate
content of French chalk varies between 90 and 98%, and the
Kansas chalk is 88–98% calcium carbonate (average 94%).2 Under
the microscope, chalk consists of the tiny shells (called tests)
of countless billions of microorganisms composed of clear
calcite set in a structureless matrix of fine-grained calcium
carbonate (microcrystalline calcite). The two major
microorganisms whose remains are thus fossilised in chalk are
foraminifera and the spikes and cells of calcareous algæ known
as coccoliths and rhabdoliths.
How then does chalk form? Most geologists believe that ‘the
present is the key to the past’ and so look to see where such
microorganisms live today, and how and where their remains
accumulate. The foraminifera found fossilised in chalk are of a
type called the planktonic foraminifera, because they live
floating in the upper 100–200 metres of the open seas. The brown
algæ that produce tiny washer-shaped coccoliths are known as
coccolithophores, and these also float in the upper section of
the open seas.
The oceans today cover almost 71% of the earth’s surface. About
20% of the oceans lie over the shallower continental margins,
while the rest covers the deeper ocean floor, which is blanketed
by a variety of sediments. Amongst these are what are known as
oozes, so-called because more than 30% of the sediment consists
of the shells of microorganisms such as foraminifera and
coccolithophores.3 Indeed, about half of the deep ocean floor is
covered by light-coloured calcareous (calcium carbonate-rich)
ooze generally down to depths of 4,500–5,000 metres. Below these
depths the calcium carbonate shells are dissolved. Even so, this
still means that about one quarter of the surface of the earth
is covered by these shell — rich deposits produced by these
microscopic plants and animals living near the surface of the
ocean.
Geologists believe that these oozes form as a result of these
microorganisms dying, with the calcium carbonate shells and
coccoliths falling slowly down to accumulate on the ocean floor.
It has been estimated that a large 150 micron (0.15mm or 0.006
inch) wide shell of a foraminifer may take as long as 10 days to
sink to the bottom of the ocean, whereas smaller ones would
probably take much longer. At the same time, many such shells
may dissolve before they even reach the ocean floor.
Nevertheless, it is via this slow accumulation of calcareous
ooze on the deep ocean floor that geologists believe chalk beds
originally formed.
The ‘Problems’ For Flood Geology
Microfossils and microcrystalline calcite—Cretaceous chalk,
Ballintoy Harbour, Antrim Coast, Northern Ireland under the
microscope (60x) (photo: Dr. Andrew Snelling)
Microfossils and microcrystalline calcite—Cretaceous chalk,
Ballintoy Harbour, Antrim Coast, Northern Ireland under the
microscope (60x) (photo: Dr. Andrew Snelling)
This is the point where critics, and not only those in the
evolutionist camp, have said that it is just not possible to
explain the formation of the chalk beds in the White Cliffs of
Dover via the geological action of the Flood (Flood geology).
The deep-sea sediments on the ocean floor today average a
thickness of about 450 metres (almost 1,500 feet), but this can
vary from ocean to ocean and also depends on proximity to land.4
The sediment covering the Pacific Ocean Basin ranges from 300 to
600 metres thick, and that in the Atlantic is about 1,000 metres
thick. In the mid-Pacific the sediment cover may be less than
100 metres thick. These differences in thicknesses of course
reflect differences in accumulation rates, owing to variations
in the sediments brought in by rivers and airborne dust, and the
production of organic debris within the ocean surface waters.
The latter is in turn affected by factors such as productivity
rates for the microorganisms in question, the nutrient supply
and the ocean water concentrations of calcium carbonate.
Nevertheless, it is on the deep ocean floor, well away from
land, that the purest calcareous ooze has accumulated which
would be regarded as the present-day forerunner to a chalk bed,
and reported accumulation rates there range from 1–8cm per 1,000
years for calcareous ooze dominated by foraminifera and 2–10 cm
per 1,000 years for oozes dominated by coccoliths.5
Now the chalk beds of southern England are estimated to be
around 405 metres (about 1,329 feet) thick and are said to span
the complete duration of the so-called Late Cretaceous
geological period,6 estimated by evolutionists to account for
between 30 and 35 million years of evolutionary time. A simple
calculation reveals that the average rate of chalk accumulation
therefore over this time period is between 1.16 and 1.35cm per
l,000 years, right at the lower end of today’s accumulation
rates quoted above. Thus the evolutionary geologists feel
vindicated, and the critics insist that there is too much chalk
to have been originally deposited as calcareous ooze by the
Flood.
But that is not the only challenge creationists face concerning
deposition of chalk beds during the Flood. Schadewald has
insisted that if all of the fossilised animals, including the
foraminifera and coccolithophores whose remains are found in
chalk, could be resurrected, then they would cover the entire
planet to a depth of at least 45cm (18 inches), and what could
they all possibly have eaten?7 He states that the laws of
thermodynamics prohibit the earth from supporting that much
animal biomass, and with so many animals trying to get their
energy from the sun the available solar energy would not nearly
be sufficient. Long-age creationist Hayward agrees with all
these problems.8
Even creationist Glenn Morton has posed similar problems,
suggesting that even though the Austin Chalk upon which the city
of Dallas (Texas) is built is little more than several hundred
feet (upwards of 100 metres) of dead microscopic animals, when
all the other chalk beds around the world are also taken into
account, the number of microorganisms involved could not
possibly have all lived on the earth at the same time to thus be
buried during the Flood.9 Furthermore, he insists that even
apart from the organic problem, there is the quantity of carbon
dioxide (CO2 ) necessary to have enabled the production of all
the calcium carbonate by the microorganisms whose calcareous
remains are now entombed in the chalk beds. Considering all the
other limestones too, he says, there just couldn’t have been
enough CO2 in the atmosphere at the time of the Flood to account
for all these calcium carbonate deposits.
Creationist Responses
Two creationists have done much to provide a satisfactory
response to these objections against Flood geology—geologists Dr
Ariel Roth of the Geoscience Research Institute (Loma Linda,
California) and John Woodmorappe. Both agree that biological
productivity does not appear to be the limiting factor. Roth10
suggests that in the surface layers of the ocean these
carbonate-secreting organisms at optimum production rates could
produce all the calcareous ooze on the ocean floor today in
probably less than 1,000 or 2,000 years. He argues that, if a
high concentration of foraminifera of 100 per litre of ocean
water were assumed,11 a doubling time of 3.65 days, and an
average of 10,000 foraminifera per gram of carbonate,12 the top
200 metres of the ocean would produce 20 grams of calcium
carbonate per square centimetre per year, or at an average
sediment density of 2 grams per cubic centimetre, 100 metres in
1,000 years. Some of this calcium carbonate would be dissolved
at depth so the time factor would probably need to be increased
to compensate for this, but if there was increased carbonate
input to the ocean waters from other sources then this would
cancel out. Also, reproduction of foraminifera below the top 200
metres of ocean water would likewise tend to shorten the time
required.
Coccolithophores on the other hand reproduce faster than
foraminifera and are amongst the fastest growing planktonic
algæ,13 sometimes multiplying at the rate of 2.25 divisions per
day. Roth suggests that if we assume an average coccolith has a
volume of 22 x 10-12 cubic centimetres, an average weight of 60
x 10-12 grams per coccolith,14 20 coccoliths produced per
coccolithophore, 13 x 106 coccolithophores per litre of ocean
water,15 a dividing rate of two times per day and a density of 2
grams per cubic centimetre for the sediments produced, one gets
a potential production rate of 54cm (over 21 inches) of calcium
carbonate per year from the top 100 metres (305 feet) of the
ocean. At this rate it is possible to produce an average 100
metre (305 feet) thickness of coccoliths as calcareous ooze on
the ocean floor in less than 200 years. Again, other factors
could be brought into the calculations to either lengthen or
shorten the time, including dissolving of the carbonate, light
reduction due to the heavy concentration of these
microorganisms, and reproducing coccoliths below the top 100
metres of ocean surface, but the net result again is to
essentially affirm the rate just calculated.
Woodmorappe16 approached the matter in a different way. Assuming
that all limestones in the Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary
divisions of the geological column are all chalks, he found that
these accounted for 17.5 million cubic kilometres of rock. (Of
course, not all these limestones are chalks, but he used this
figure to make the ‘problem’ more difficult, so as to get the
most conservative calculation results.) Then using Roth’s
calculation of a 100 metre thickness of coccoliths produced
every 200 years, Woodmorappe found that one would only need 21.1
million square kilometres or 4.1% of the earth ’s surface to be
coccolith-producing seas to supply the 17.5 million cubic
kilometres of coccoliths in 1,600-1,700 years, that is, in the
pre-Flood era. He also made further calculations by starting
again from the basic parameters required, and found that he
could reduce that figure to only 12.5 million square kilometres
of ocean area or 2.5% of the earth’s surface to produce the
necessary exaggerated estimate of 17.5 million cubic kilometres
of coccoliths.
‘Blooms’ During The Flood
Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of coccoliths in the
Cretaceous chalk, Brighton, England (photo: Dr Joachim Scheven)
Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of coccoliths in the
Cretaceous chalk, Brighton, England (photo: Dr Joachim Scheven)
As helpful as they are, these calculations overlook one major
relevant issue — these chalk beds were deposited during the
Flood. Creationist geologists may have different views as to
where the pre-Flood/Flood boundary is in the geological record,
but the majority would regard these Upper Cretaceous chalks as
having been deposited very late in the Flood. That being the
case, the coccoliths and foraminiferal shells that are now in
the chalk beds would have to have been produced during the Flood
itself, not in the 1,600–1,700 years of the pre-Flood era as
calculated by Woodmorappe, for surely if there were that many
around at the outset of the Flood these chalk beds should have
been deposited sooner rather than later during the Flood event.
Similarly, Roth’s calculations of the required quantities
potentially being produced in up to 1,000 years may well show
that the quantities of calcareous oozes on today’s ocean floors
are easily producible in the time-span since the Flood, but
these calculations are insufficient to show how these chalk beds
could be produced during the Flood itself.
Nevertheless, both Woodmorappe and Roth recognize that even
today coccolith accumulation is not steady-state but highly
episodic, for under the right conditions significant increases
in the concentrations of these marine microorganisms can occur,
as in plankton ‘blooms’ and red tides. For example, there are
intense blooms of coccoliths that cause ‘white water’ situations
because of the coccolith concentrations,17 and during bloom
periods in the waters near Jamaica microorganism numbers have
been reported as increasing from 100,000 per litre to 10 million
per litre of ocean water.18 The reasons for these blooms are
poorly understood, but suggestions include turbulence of the
sea, wind,19 decaying fish,20 nutrients from freshwater inflow
and upwelling, and temperature.21
Without a doubt, all of these stated conditions would have been
generated during the catastrophic global upheaval of the Flood,
and thus rapid production of carbonate skeletons by foraminifera
and coccolithophores would be possible. Thermodynamic
considerations would definitely not prevent a much larger
biomass such as this being produced, since Schadewald who raised
this as a ‘problem’ is clearly wrong. It has been reported that
oceanic productivity 5–10 times greater than the present could
be supported by the available sunlight, and it is nutrient
availability (especially nitrogen) that is the limiting
factor.22 Furthermore, present levels of solar ultraviolet
radiation inhibit marine planktonic productivity.23
Quite clearly, under cataclysmic Flood conditions, including
torrential rain, sea turbulence, decaying fish and other organic
matter, and the violent volcanic eruptions associated with the
‘fountains of the deep’, explosive blooms on a large and
repetitive scale in the oceans are realistically conceivable, so
that the production of the necessary quantities of calcareous
ooze to produce the chalk beds in the geological record in a
short space of time at the close of the Flood is also
realistically conceivable. Violent volcanic eruptions would have
produced copious quantities of dust and steam, and the possible
different mix of gases than in the present atmosphere could have
reduced ultraviolet radiation levels. However, in the closing
stages of the Flood the clearing and settling of this debris
would have allowed increasing levels of sunlight to penetrate to
the oceans.
Ocean water temperatures would have been higher at the close of
the Flood because of the heat released during the cataclysm, for
example, from volcanic and magmatic activity, and the latent
heat from condensation of water. Such higher temperatures have
been verified by evolutionists from their own studies of these
rocks and deep-sea sediments,24 and would have also been
conducive to these explosive blooms of foraminifera and
coccolithophores. Furthermore, the same volcanic activity would
have potentially released copious quantities of nutrients into
the ocean waters, as well as prodigious amounts of the CO2 that
is so necessary for the production of the calcium carbonate by
these microorganisms. Even today the volcanic output of CO2 has
been estimated at about 6.6 million tonnes per year, while
calculations based on past eruptions and the most recent
volcanic deposits in the rock record suggest as much as a
staggering 44 billion tonnes of CO2 have been added to the
atmosphere and oceans in the recent past (that is, in the most
recent part of the post-Flood era).25
The Final Answer
The situation has been known where pollution in coastal areas
has contributed to the explosive multiplication of
microorganisms in the ocean waters to peak concentrations of
more than 10 billion per litre.26 Woodmorappe has calculated
that in chalk there could be as many as 3 x 1013 coccoliths per
cubic metre if densely packed (which usually isn’t the case),
yet in the known bloom just mentioned, 10 billion microorganisms
per litre of ocean water equates to 1013 microorganisms per
cubic metre.
Adapting some of Woodmorappe’s calculations, if the 10% of the
earth’s surface that now contains chalk beds was covered in
water, as it still was near the end of the Flood, and if that
water explosively bloomed with coccolithophores and foraminifera
with up to 1013 microorganisms per cubic metre of water down to
a depth of less than 500 metres from the surface, then it would
have only taken two or three such blooms to produce the required
quantity of microorganisms to be fossilised in the chalk beds.
Lest it be argued that a concentration of 1013 microorganisms
per cubic metre would extinguish all light within a few metres
of the surface, it should be noted that phytoflagellates such as
these are able to feed on bacteria, that is, planktonic species
are capable of heterotrophism (they are ‘mixotrophic’).27 Such
bacteria would have been in abundance, breaking down the masses
of floating and submerged organic debris (dead fish, plants,
animals, etc.) generated by the flood. Thus production of
coccolithophores and foraminifera is not dependent on sunlight,
the supply of organic material potentially supporting a dense
concentration.
Since, for example, in southern England there are three main
chalk beds stacked on top of one another, then this scenario of
three successive, explosive, massive blooms coincides with the
rock record. Given that the turnover rate for coccoliths is up
to two days,28 then these chalk beds could thus have been
produced in as little as six days, totally conceivable within
the time framework of the flood. What is certain, is that the
right set of conditions necessary for such blooms to occur had
to have coincided in full measure to have explosively generated
such enormous blooms, but the evidence that it did happen is
there for all to plainly see in these chalk beds in the
geological record. Indeed, the purity of these thick chalk beds
worldwide also testifies to their catastrophic deposition from
enormous explosively generated blooms, since during protracted
deposition over supposed millions of years it is straining
credulity to expect that such purity would be maintained without
contaminating events depositing other types of sediments. There
are variations in consistency (see Appendix) but not purity. The
only additional material in the chalk is fossils of macroscopic
organisms such as ammonites and other molluscs, whose
fossilisation also requires rapid burial because of their size
(see Appendix).
No doubt there are factors that need to be better quantified in
such a series of calculations, but we are dealing with a
cataclysmic Flood, the like of which has not been experienced
since for us to study its processes. However, we do have the
results of its passing in the rock record to study, and it is
clear that by working from what is known to occur today, even if
rare and catastrophic by today’s standards, we can realistically
calculate production of these chalk beds within the time
framework and cataclysmic activity of the Flood, and in so doing
respond adequately to the objections and ‘problems’ raised by
the critics.
Appendix: ‘Hardgrounds’ and Other Fossils
The English chalk beds consist of alternating thin hard layers
and thicker soft layers. The thin hard layers (or ‘Hardgrounds’)
are encrusted on their upper surfaces with mollusc shells, worm
tubes and bryozoan (lace coral) skeletons and show the work of
various boring organisms. Consequently, Wonderly insists that:
‘it is thus obvious that during the formation of the chalk beds
each hard layer was exposed to the sea water long enough to be
bored by organisms and then encrusted by the animals which
attached themselves. … This is of course also a record of the
passage of many thousands of years’.1
Wonderly thus sees this as evidence that Noah’s Flood could not
have deposited these chalk beds, and that the rock record took
millions of years to form.
Scheven2 is equally familiar with ‘hardgrounds’ in his
experience in the German Muschelkalk of the so-called Middle
Triassic. In his Flood geology model, Scheven places these
strata, and the English chalk beds, into the immediate
post-Flood era, but in no way does he see any evidence in these
rocks for the thousands of years that are so ‘obvious’ to
Wonderly. Indeed, Scheven agrees that the chalk accumulated via
mass propagations amidst mass extinctions and catastrophe.
Furthermore, he describes the banding now observable in these
chalk beds as due to transport and redeposition of calcareous
ooze by water.
But what of the borings and encrusted shells and tubes? These
are not necessarily the conclusive ‘proof’ of thousands of years
Wonderly insists they are. Molluscs, worms and other marine life
were left outside the Ark, some to survive the Flood, in their
marine ‘home’. Once the explosive blooms had generated the
voluminous foraminiferal shells and coccoliths, these would then
sink and be swept away by the Flood currents before being
deposited in the alternating bands of the chalk beds. Other
marine life would have been trapped by these surges and entombed
alive, hence their presence in the chalk beds. In whatever
moments they had before expiring, it is not inconceivable that
some of these creatures would try to reestablish their living
positions on whatever momentary surfaces they found themselves
on.
Ed. Note: See also Dr Tas Walker’s answer to a critic, Are
hardgrounds really a challenge to the global Flood?
References
Wonderly, D., 1977. God’s Time-Records in Ancient Sediments,
Crystal Press, Flint, Michigan, pp. 130–131.
Scheven, J., 1990. The Flood/post-Flood boundary in the fossil
record. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on
Creationism, R.E. Walsh and C.L. Brooks (eds), Creation Science
Fellowship, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Vol. 2, pp. 247–266.
References
Pettijohn, F.J., 1957. Sedimentary Rocks, Harper and Row, New
York, pp.400–401. Return to text.
Pettijohn, Ref. 1. Return to text.
Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th edition, 1992, 25:176–178. Return
to text.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Ref. 3. Return to text.
Kukal, Z., 1990. The rate of geological processes Earth Science
Reviews, 28:1–284 (pp. 109–117). Return to text.
House, M., 1989. Geology of the Dorset Coast, Geologists’
Association Guide, The Geologists’ Association, London, pp.
4–10. Return to text.
Schadewald, R.J., 1982. Six ‘Flood’ arguments creationists
can’t answer. Creation/Evolution IV:12–17 (p. 13). Return to
text.
Hayward, A., 1987. Creation and Evolution: The Facts and the
Fallacies, Triangle (SPCK), London, pp. 91–93. Return to text.
Morton, G.R., 1984. The carbon problem. Creation Research
Society Quarterly 20(4):212–219 (pp. 217–218). Return to text.
Roth, A.A., 1985. Are millions of years required to produce
biogenic sediments in the deep ocean? Origins 12(1):48–56.
Return to text.
Berger, W.H., 1969. Ecologic pattern of living planktonic
foraminifera. Deep-Sea Research 16:1–24. Return to text.
Berger, W.H., 1976. Biogenous deep sea sediments: production,
preservation and interpretation. In: Chemical Oceanography, J.
P. Riley and R. Chester (eds), 2nd edition, Academic Press, New
York, Vol. 5, pp. 265–388. Return to text.
Pasche, E., 1968. Biology and physiology of coccolithophorids.
Annual Review of Microbiology 22:71–86. Return to text.
Honjo, S., 1976. Coccoliths: production, transportation and
sedimentation. Marine Micropaleontology 1:65–79; and personal
communication to A.A. Roth. Return to text.
Black, M. and Bukry, D., 1979. Coccoliths. In: The Encyclopedia
of Paleontology, R. W. Fairbridge and D. Jablonski (eds),
Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences, Dowden. Hutchinson and Ross,
Stroudsberg, Pennsylvania, 7:194–199. Return to text.
Woodmorappe, J., 1986. The antediluvian biosphere and its
capability of supplying the entire fossil record. Proceedings of
the First International Conference on Creationism, R. E. Walsh,
C.L. Brooks and R.S. Crowell (eds), Creation Science Fellowship,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Vol. 2, pp. 205–218. Return to text.
Sumich, J.L., 1976. Biology of Marine Life, William C. Brown.
Iowa, pp. 118, 167. Return to text.
Seliger, H.H., Carpenter, J.H., Loftus, M. and McElroy, W.D.,
1970. Mechanisms for the accumulation or high concentrations of
dinoflagellates in a bioluminescent bay. Limnology and
Oceanography 15:234–245. Return to text.
Pingree, R.D., Holligan, P.M. and Head, R.N., 1977. Survival of
dinoflagellate blooms in the western English Channel. Nature
265:266–269. Return to text.
Wilson, W.B. and Collier, A., 1955. Preliminary notes on the
culturing of Gymnodinium brevis Davis. Science 121:394–395.
Return to text.
Ballantine, D. and Abbott,B. C., 1957. Toxic marine
flagellates; their occurrence and physiological effects on
animals. Journal of General Microbiology 16:274–281. Return to
text.
Tappan, H., 1982. Extinction or survival: selectivity and
causes of Phanerozoic crises. Geological Society of America,
Special Paper 190, p. 270. Return to text.
Worrest, R.C., 1983. Impact of solar ultraviolet-B radiation
(290–320nm) upon marine microalgæ. Physiologica Plantarum
58(3):432. Return to text.
Vardiman, L., 1994. Ocean Sediments and the Age of the Earth,
Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, California (in
preparation). Return to text.
Leavitt, S.W., 1982. Annual volcanic carbon dioxide emission:
an estimate from eruption chronologies. Environmental Geology,
4:15–21. Return to text.
Roth, Ref. 10, p. 54. Return to text.
Encyclop&ælig;dia Britannica, 15th edition, 1992, 26:283.
Return to text.
Sumich, Ref. 17. Return to text.
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#Post#: 140--------------------------------------------------
Re: From Creation.com
By: Admin Date: February 19, 2017, 12:15 am
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Papers 76 JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (3) 2010
The origin of the Carboniferous coal measures—part 1: Lessons
from history
Joanna F. Woolley
HTML https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j24_3/j24_3_76-81.pdf
Early geological researchers into the coal measures of the
Carboniferous System sought to explain its origin in terms of
geological processes operating over eons of time. Yet the
evidence that they were continually uncovering presented more
and more difficulties within that framework of thinking.
Particularly troublesome were the difficulties relating to the
roots of the fern trees, the dominant Carboniferous vegetation.
The confusion even extended across national borders with the
ideas of the geologists on the Continent conflicting with those
in England and America, such as the Silvomarine hypothesis of
the German Otto Kuntze. This confusion led the early geologists
to devise secondary hypotheses to salvage their paradigm,
hypotheses that are today part of the standard explanation for
the origin of coal but are still inadequate to resolve the
problems. The evidence suggests that geological processes were
qualitatively different and of a larger scale than the pioneers
of the discipline were prepared to consider. In other words,
their paradigm needs updating. Focusing on the Carboniferous
The Carboniferous was the very first complete section of the
geological column to have been described. The name
‘Carboniferous’ or ‘coal-bearing’ (from ‘carbo’, the Latin for
‘coal’, plus ‘fero’, the Latin for ‘I have’) was proposed by the
English geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in a
paper published in 1822 to designate the coal-bearing strata in
north-central England. Conybeare and Phillips’ Carboniferous
Order included the Mountain or Carboniferous Limestone at its
base, the Millstone Grit (or graywacke) in the middle, and the
Coal Measures on top. 1 As the early geological researchers
sought to explain the origin of the coal measures and to
understand the fossils contained within the measures, they
thought in terms of modern depositional environments. Their
framework of thinking involved geological processes that
operated slowly over eons of time, yet they uncovered evidence
that demanded processes of larger scale than they were prepared
to consider. As they encountered more and more anomalies that
contradicted their expectations they resorted to secondary
hypotheses that are still part of the standard explanation
today, but which are still inadequate to account for the
evidence. A review of the historical development of geological
explanations for the origin of the Carboniferous Coal measures
will be given because this will help us understand the issues
involved as well as the problems that remain unresolved to this
day.
The challenge to explain the fossils
Despite there being an incredible biodensity indicated by the
abundance of fossils in the Coal Measures, there was a
disturbing lack of biodiversity in them. They presented numerous
well-preserved examples of fragments of plants, but they
emphatically did not contain easily-found samples of the whole
of these organisms. So prevalent was this disarticulation and so
unfamiliar were some of the flora in them that the early
pioneers were forced to place the fragments into ‘form genera’
instead of being able to describe genera of whole plants (figure
1). 2 They did this in order to make any progress at all. That
is, those interested in the subject produced descriptions and
graphics of parts of the plants, waiting for future fossil
evidence to illuminate the relationships among them. One
illustrative case of the challenges they faced was that of
classifying the bark or periderm of the predominant fern trees
(the lycopods) of the Upper Carboniferous. These often occurred
in flattened and fragmented sections. Different layers of
lycopod bark with different patterns soon became different form
genera. In fact, lycopod bark from the same layer of the tree
but situated at different levels on it also gave rise to
different form genera. This was typical for all the parts of
lycopods. Hence a single lycopod fern-tree could have rootlets,
roots, different layers of bark, various protuberances in the
bark, leaves, seeds (i.e. integumented megasporangiums), and
spores all in different form genera (figure 2). This was also
true for other Carboniferous plants. Indeed, there were even
cases of the same part of a Carboniferous plant being placed in
different form genera due to its having undergone more than one
type of distinct fossilization. Despite there being an abundance
of lycopod fern-tree trunk fossils (as examples, Sigillaria and
Lepidodendron ), they were found to be disturbingly separated
from any roots (the Stigmaria ), were often casts (implying a
hollow or easily-destroyed interior), and were sometimes found
as flattened or decorticated bark. Concerning fragments of
Stigmaria (the roots—figure 3) without Sigillaria (the trunks),
C.W. Williamson, the leading expert on Stigmaria , stated “How
these roots have so often become disturbed and broken up is a
question not easily answered.” 3 Not surprisingly, the
separation of the Stigmaria from the fern-tree trunks initially
caused a great deal of consternation. The problem was that such
excellent preservation combined with disarticulation of the
trees pointed to catastrophe rather than slow deposition over
millennia by present processes Papers 77 JOURNAL OF CREATION 24
(3) 2010 within a swamp, as they had expected from their
geological philosophy. Some extent of the intensity of the
catastrophe involved can be gleaned when we examine
quantitatively the forces necessary to shear the trunks and
limbs of these trees. 4 Especially disconcerting was the fact
that the Stigmaria (the roots) were found in different
stratigraphic layers than the trunks. At first it was thought
that the Stigmaria were a sort of succulent aquatic plant with
its rootlets being considered its leaves. 5 Yet these leaves
were arranged spirally around the main root (like a little
brush). The mystery was eventually solved when Binney found a
Sigillaria (the trunk) attached to Stigmaria. Then, to produce
an amazing confusion out of this newly-found order, in the Cape
Benton Coalfield a Stigmaria was found attached to a
Lepidodendron (the other type of dominant Lycopod trunk)! So
there was the unprecedented situation of having one uniquely
distinguishable root fossil for two readily differentiable and
dissimilar tree-sized plants. This quandary has gotten worse due
to additional fossil finds. 6 One late nineteenth century
researcher summarized the state of wondrous confusion as
follows: “All the geologists who have examined the distribution
of the carboniferous measures and the composition of the strata
have remarked the predominance of Stigmaria in the clay deposits
which constitute the bottom of the coal beds. As the remains of
Stigmaria are always [ sic ] found in that peculiar kind of clay
and also in the intervening siliceous beds generally called clay
partings, without any fragments of Sigillaria , it has been
supposed that the clay materials were merely a kind of soft
mould where the Sigillaria began their life by the germination
of seeds and there expanded their roots, while their trunks
growing up did contribute by their woody matter the essential
composition formed above clay beds. This opinion has the
appearance of truth indeed. But how to explain the fact that
beds of fireclay twenty to thirty feet [6 to 9 meters] in
thickness are mostly composed of Stigmaria , or filled from the
base to the top with remains of these plants, stems, and leaves,
without a fragment of Sigillaria ever found amongst them and
without any coal above? Roots cannot live independently of
trunks or of aerial plants.” 7
Figure 1. Schematic of a Lepidodendron fern tree showing the
location of some of the numerous ‘ form genera ’ associated with
it.
Figure 2. An interpretative challenge: flattened lycopod bark
(arrow at top) in close proximity to a Stigmaria (its central
core or stele is the cylinder at the bottom center—bottom
arrow). This is a typical occurrence in the sandstone layer
immediately below the Middle Kittanning Coal of Portersville,
Pennsylvania, United States of America. (Collection of Daniel A.
Woolley)
Figure 3. Schematic of Stigmaria structure, including radiating
rootlets. Stigmaria Rootlets of Stigmaria Lepidocarpon or
Achlamydocarpon Lepidostrobophyllum Lepidodendron Lagenicula
Lycospora Lepidostrobus Lepidophylloides Eskdalia Ulodendron
Haloniz Papers 78 JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (3) 2010
The abundance of ferns in the coal and shale layers led to the
conjecture that the environment in which they flourished was a
warm or tropical one. Of course, as noted very early by Charles
Darwin (in his well-known Voyage of the Beagle ), peat-forming
swamps do not exist in the tropics: they are confined to the
temperate zones. 8 Not only that, but once the extent of
Carboniferous coals became known, their phenomenal distribution
in area and uniformity in thickness and flora composition became
problems of the greatest magnitude. This did not go unnoticed in
the non- English-speaking world. Furthermore there was an
unstated but rather natural assumption that the fern foliage
that was so similar in appearance to that of modern ferns
reflected a plant that was closely related to them, occupying
the same ecological niche. It wasn’t until the beginning of the
twentieth century that two researchers were able to discern by
clever deductions from fossil evidence that these ferns were
seed ferns whose seeds may have been well suited to an aquatic
environment. 9 By that time paradigm paralysis had set in, and
the premature hypotheses became standard working assumptions.
Problems with the notion of Paleozoic swamp-generated coal
The inferences of the early English and American researchers
concerning the coal measures tended to differ from those of some
German and French scientists. The English-speaking geologist
milieu quickly ran into a multitude of seemingly inexplicable
observations, ones that pointed to the untenable or questionable
nature of their favored premature explanation of coal having
formed in ancient swamps. Some of these observations and the
complex explanations of the English-speaking geologists will be
dealt with first and then the contrasting work of Continental
geologists will be examined. A rather direct challenge to the
idea of the swamp genesis of coal was the existence of marine
fossil tube worms (figure 4), among other marine fossils,
attached to the exterior, and sometimes the interior, layers of
Sigillaria . These were seemingly identical to contemporary
descendants of these animals. Dawson argued that these Spirorbis
carbonarius fossils came from “closed lagoons and estuaries”
because they could be found on the inside of Sigillaria ,
supposedly indicating that these Lycopods were dead and hollow
when the infestation occurred. 10 Charles Lyell saw the same
evidence as indicating marine invasion of ancient coastal
swamps, even coming up with an inadequately small-scale
contemporary analogue from an extremity of the Mississippi Delta
to buttress his argument. 11 The incongruity of this explanation
is obvious: continent-sized coal layers were supposedly invaded
pervasively by coastal phenomena! These ad hoc arguments or
fixes to the problem of maintaining the swamp explanation for
the coal measures in the face of conflicting evidence certainly
seemed to fail in the matter of scale, if not in other aspects.
The sandstone wedges in the coal measures were another problem.
These were expected to be aligned in one direction given the
unbelievable uniformity of the coal layers and the expectation
of sediment transport analogous to that observed today. However,
they were not. Instead the wedge-shaped strata varied in almost
every layer. It was as if they had been deposited by numerous
rivers flowing from every direction into a closed sea or large
lake. Furthermore, all the rivers had unnaturally wide mouths.
12 To overcome this problem, geologists suggested that
widely-spread simultaneous changes in land levels were
responsible for both the wedge patterns and the uniformity and
purity of the coal layers. 13 Edward Martin commented on this:
“[T]he astonishing part of it is that the changes in the level
of the land must have been taking place simultaneously over
these large areas.” He also quipped that “[F]orms of ‘flora’
found in the coal-beds in each country bear so close a
resemblance to one another” that the suspicion was aroused that
they unnaturally ignored latitude. Furthermore, considering the
thin clay and shale partings in the coal, it was observed that
it was surprising that so little sediment found its way into the
coal itself. But this was ingeniously explained away by Charles
Lyell when he noted that Cypress swamps at the mouth of the
Figure 4. Spirorbis (marine tube worm) fossils (left) from
supposedly swamp deposits from Mazon Creek, Illinois, United
States of America. Living Spirorbis (right). Author’s collection
Papers 79 JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (3) 2010
Mississippi River filter out the sediment, leaving periodic
floods to account for the coal ‘partings’ of sandstone or shale.
14 As it was stated at the end of the 19 th century by one
geologist, concerning the artifice of using large-scale uniform
changes in the elevation of the land to explain the multiple
layers of coal: “Many a hard geological nut has only been
overcome by the application of the principle of changes of level
in the surface of the earth, and in this we shall find a sure
explanation of the phenomena of the coal-measures.” 15 The idea
of doing a geodynamical calculation to test the feasibility of
such speculations seemed to be anathema to this new breed of
geologist. Still, there were more troubling anomalies that
plagued those promoting a swamp origin for the coal measures
coal. Coal layers often times were discriminating in what plants
they contained. In the Joggins, Nova Scotia area, at least two
of the 56 coals were found to be composed almost entirely of
leaves. 16 Unnatural plant associations were found, such as
roots fossilized next to bark, and ferns or Stigmarian rootlets
invading calamite stems. The relative absence of fauna in the
Carboniferous was accompanied by the presence of ‘land reptiles
and land snails’ within the hollow fern-tree trunks there. 17
The biodensity of the apparent coal environment was phenomenal,
yet the biodiversity was remarkably low. In addition, coal
layers were seen to bifurcate or split cleanly, without a hint
of a facies-like transition. 18 There were hundreds of coal
layers stacked one upon another in the associated repetitive
strata units. And always there was the problem of scale, of
their immense geographical extent. In an exacting science like
physics, the immense scale of the deposit alone would have been
termed a ‘catastrophe’, but all these anomalies drew scant
attention as hard geological questions were answered by clever
arguments, however tortuous those arguments may have been.
The Silvomarine hypothesis
The English and American geologists may have reached a
metastable consensus regarding their speculations on the swamp
origin of coal but that did not prevent a Continental scientist
from coming up with an alternative explanation that addressed
the difficulties without reliance upon a plethora of contortedly
clever arguments. Otto Kuntze was a German botanist whose first
love was geology. In his pioneering 1884 book entitled
Phytogeogenesis: Die Vorweltliche Entwickelung der Erdkruste und
der Pflanzen in Grundzugen (Phytogeogenesis: A basic outline of
the prehistoric development of the earth’s crust and plants),
later supplemented by his book Geogenetische Beitrage and
subsequent publications, Dr Kuntze came up with many disturbing
and cogent arguments challenging the peat-forming swamp paradigm
for the formation of Upper Carboniferous coal. 19 He pointed out
further salt water species that were to be found in these coal
layers, as well as many fresh water and terrestrial ones. He
sampled and chemically analyzed an incredible geographic
distribution of coals and consistently confirmed that the coal
measures were always associated with a marine environment when
they were Upper Carboniferous (and a continental one when they
were Tertiary). 20 He confirmed and reported upon what others
had observed about the odd distribution of upright but truncated
and hollow lycopod logs being stratigraphically separated from
their roots. He noted a full-scale experiment that showed the
upright placement of logs was likely to be the case for some
time after their denudation and aqueous deposition; although he
admitted to being baffled by the separation of lycopod trunks
from their roots. He speculated that a coal-forming swimming
mass or mat of leaves, bark, etc. was likely to be
hydrodynamically separated from the trunks and roots of the
lycopod fern trees. He had trouble explaining the mechanism for
the burial of the repetitive Pennsylvanian coal layers,
especially the intervening limestone layers associated with
them, but he finally settled upon a windblown or aeolian origin
for these observed sediments. Falling victim to the
uniformitarian framework of thinking, which requires a full
explanation in terms of present processes, his aeolian-origin
hypothesis was a weak link in his otherwise strong case. It
tended to present problems of scale—problems of scale,
ironically, being one of his primary arguments against delta
splay formation of coals.
Figure 5. Otto Kuntze ’ s reconstruction of an Upper
Carboniferous floating forest appeared in both his books on the
subject (Otto Kuntze, ref. 19, frontpiece and Geogenetische
Beitrage , Gressner and Schramm, Leipzig, p. 72, 1895.) Papers
80 JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (3) 2010
Kuntze also proposed that the Upper Carboniferous coals were
formed from floating forests (figure 5), the likes of which do
not exist today (even though he was able to find small-scale
floating island analogues in the Rio Paraguay and Mississippi
rivers). These forests had as their matrix or core a mass of
lycopod fern tree roots that were interlocking with stiff
rootlets that he suggested were used to fend off animal
predators. They were in a non-acidic marine environment,
floating on or just below the surface, depending on the maturity
of the lycopod trunk (which would sink with age as he noted in
some present-day partial analogues from Scandinavia and
Switzerland). Surprisingly, he believed the upward-pointing
rootlets on the lycopod stigmarian root were exposed to the air
(while believing the downward ones were immersed in a muck). The
coal-forming floating forests, which Kuntze dubbed
“silvomarine”, had to have been washed into place, according to
him. His arguments were based on the disturbances of the flora
forming the base of them as well as their apparently having been
laid down on limestones (including a Devonian one in Russia),
shales, granites, gneisses, slates, and other silicate stones.
Finally, according to Kuntze, the flora and fauna extinctions of
this period were due to total habitat destruction of the
silvomarine environment. Kuntze is to be credited with not
having followed the English lawyer Lyell’s propensity to apply
local or coastal observations to continent-sized coal deposits.
However, like Lyell and the English-language geologists, he
steered clear of mechanical or physical calculations (despite
having applied quantitative chemical analyses in his reasoning).
Statistical arguments were absent from his whole argument.
Generally speaking, any consensus about the origin of coal
tended to be confined within narrow, almost national boundaries.
The English and American scientific communities held in situ
(autochthonous) interpretations of the origin of coal while the
French and some German scientists held the floated-in view
(allochthonous). It would be a long time before experimental
evidence would be found to clarify this question. 21
Conclusion
Early geological researchers sought to explain the origin of the
coal measures in terms of modern depositional environments that
involved geological processes that operated over eons of time
(conforming to an historical and cultural deist milieu, which
seems to have been a major driving force). Yet the evidence that
was uncovered from the Carboniferous coal measures presented
more and more difficulties within their framework of thinking.
Problems that presented themselves included the incredible
biodensity of fossils in the coal measures coupled with a lack
of biodiversity; the disarticulation of the fossils coupled with
their excellent preservation; the separation of different parts
of the same object, such as roots and trunks, into different
stratigraphic layers. Other anomalies included the presence of
marine fossils in supposedly terrestrial deposits, the immense
lateral geographical extent of the coal seams, the high purity
of the coal seams with minimal contamination from mud and sand,
and the inability to find an analogous modern environment. As
the early geologists uncovered this disturbing array of
anomalies that contradicted their expectations, they resorted to
secondary hypotheses. It led to conflicts between the
English-speaking geologists (of England and America) and the
geologists on the Continent. While the hypotheses developed have
today become part of the standard explanation for the origin of
coal measure, they are still inadequate to account for the
evidence and have in no way been resolved over time. Quite the
contrary: the more the problem is studied (and despite a large
quantity of solid work done to elucidate the geochemistry of the
situation) the greater the apparent discrepancies seem. This
leads to the conclusion that the problem is with the
interpretive paradigm. The predicament geologists have gotten
themselves into over this origin question arises from their
propensity to put forth qualitative and premature hypotheses.
Lack of quantitative calculations, statistical tests, and
experimentation is also a major factor. We are now at the place
where we need to consider geological processes that are
qualitatively different and of a larger scale than the pioneers
of the discipline were prepared to consider. In other words, the
paradigm needs updating.
Acknowledgement
This article has been kindly reviewed by Barry Lee Woolley.
Joshua A. Woolley provided the reference information necessary
for the cantilevered-beam-analogue-of-a-lycopod- trunk
calculation.
References
1. Later, in the United States, geologist Alexander Winchell
proposed the name “Mississippian” in 1869 for the mainly
limestone Lower Carboniferous strata exposed along the upper
Mississippi River drainage region, and after that, in 1891,
Henry S. Williams suggested “Pennsylvanian” for the coal-bed
containing Upper Carboniferous. These terms were subsequently
used by American geologists and paleontologists in place of the
one Carboniferous System used in Europe. Agreed-upon adjustments
in stratigraphic boundaries have brought the Early Carboniferous
and the Upper or Later Carboniferous into alignment with the
Mississippian and Pennsylvanian, respectively. 2. Often times a
major part of the plant which has become a form genera (viz.
Lepidodendron ) has come to designate the whole plant. 3.
Williamson, C.W., A monograph on the morphology and histology of
Stigmaria ficoides , London Palaeontographical Society , p. 12,
1887. 4. If a lycopod be modeled as a cantilevered 30-meter-long
circular wood cylinder, it will fail in 130 km/hr [80 miles per
hour] winds. The failure will not be in bending induced
compression, but in the associated shear. The failure will be at
its full circular base. This may be a hint as to why Stigmaria
are usually separated from their fern tree trunks.There are a
variety of empirical formulas that give the force of wind on a
vertical cylinder, all of them giving nearly identical answers.
One of the simplest is F = APC d , where F is the force in
pounds per square foot, A is the projected area of the item in
square feet, P is the wind pressure in pounds per square foot
given by P = 0.00256 V 2 , where V is the horizontal ideal
sustained wind speed given in miles per hour, and C d is 1.2 for
a long cylinder (though more likely to be 1.0 for mature
lycopods). If P and C d were to be changed to P = 0.004 V 2 and
C d = 0.67 (again for a cylinder),
---
Is the geological column a global sequence? Michael J. Oard
HTML https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j24_1/j24_1_56-64.pdf
Creationist geologists are not yet agreed over whether the
geological column represents an exact sequence of Flood events
or not. Local stratigraphic sections seem to line up with the
general order of the geological column at hundreds of locations
around the world. But there are many problems with the details.
For example, 1) the geological column is a vertical or
stratigraphic representation abstracted from rock units that are
mainly found laterally adjacent to each other in the field, 2)
new fossil discoveries continue to expand fossil stratigraphic
ranges, 3) different names are given to the same or a similar
organism when found in “ different-aged ” strata, 4) taxonomic
manipulation, 5) anomalous fossils, and 6) out-of-order fossils.
These problems mean that geologists should be cautious about how
they relate the geological column to the Flood.
The question of how the geological column fits into Flood
geology and the order of events before, during, and after the
Flood is quite controversial within creationism. Some
creationists advocate that the geological column is an exact
representation of the events of the Flood and possibly
post-Flood deposition, minus the uniformitarian timescale. In
other words, the Cambrian is early in the Flood, followed by the
Ordovician, etc., all over the world according to the exact
order of the geological column. In that scheme, Mesozoic would
be considered middle Flood or late Flood, depending upon where
one places the Flood/post-Flood boundary, and the Cenozoic would
be either late Flood or post-Flood. Is this claim true or just
taken on faith? How was the column developed ? To demonstrate
that the geological column is a global sequence, four steps are
necessary: (1) develop local columns for small areas, (2) tie
local columns into a regional-or subcontinental-scale column,
(3) integrate local and regional columns into a
continental-scale column and (4) develop the overreaching global
geological column. Presumably the first and second steps could
be fairly straightforward, if the geology is uncomplicated and
the lithology of the strata can be traced for long distances.
But, in areas of tectonics, overthrusts, and facies changes, the
development of even a local column may be difficult or nearly
impossible. The third and fourth steps become much more
difficult since lithologies and fossils cannot be traced across
continents and from continent to continent. It would seem that
the task grows by orders of magnitude at these last two stages,
becoming more hypothetical the greater the area of
extrapolation. Woodmorappe noted: “As one moves from local all
the way to global correlation by fossils, correlations become
increasingly less empirical and more conceptual. This is because
there are progressively greater differences (such as lithology,
local fossil succession, and overall faunal character) as one
moves even further geographically from a reference section in
the type area.” 1 The geological column was first developed at a
local or regional scale before it was extrapolated to a global
scale. The geological column was first set up in England, the
Alps of Europe, and the Ural Mountains of Russia based on a
number of assumptions. 2 It is possible that the formations in
England may be well-behaved vertically and horizontally (but
this should be checked), so that the part of the column
developed in England may be generally accurate. I question how
well the Alps and the Permian from the Ural Mountains fit into
the original geological column because of their distance from
England. Although it is claimed that evolution was not a guiding
principle for the construction of the geological column in the
early 1800s, the formations were nonetheless pigeonholed into
slots based on fossil succession. In other words, the original
column was not necessarily developed from lithology but mainly
by a succession of index fossils. Index fossils are organisms
that are assumed to have spread over much of the world and lived
only a short time. Yes, “catastrophists” generally developed the
column, but these catastrophists believed in multiple
catastrophes in which the Genesis Flood was just the last and
accounted for only the surficial “diluvium”. Some of these
catastrophists would be considered progressive creationists
today, but others eventually succumbed completely to
uniformitarianism. Fossil succession over long periods of time
was the guiding principle, which essentially is the same as
evolution. When biological evolution came on the scene, fossils
succession became evolutionary progression with time. As it
later turned out, much of the “diluvium” was the result of
glaciation. So, the Genesis Flood, after first being relegated
to producing only the surficial layer, was then rejected
entirely by most scientists in the 1800s. Some scientists and
theologians held onto a local or tranquil flood, although
Scripture is abundantly clear that the Flood was catastrophic
and covered the entire earth.
Adapted from: Oard, M., The geological column is a general flood
order with many exceptions; in: Reed, J.K. and Oard, M.J. (eds),
The Geologic Column: Perspectives Within Diluvial Geology ,
Creation Research Society, Chino Valley, AZ, ch. 7, pp. 99–119,
2006; with permission from the Creation Research Society.
Many people believe index fossils were supplemented by
radiometric dating in the 1900s, but index fossils continue to
have preeminence in dating. Radiometric dates must agree with
the geological column, or the radiometric dates are assumed
wrong (or reinterpreted) for various reasons. 3 As a result of
this circular reasoning, there are countless problems in
radiometric dating. 4,5 A new creationist research project,
called RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth), has shown
that in some instances the millions or billions of years are
very likely the result of accelerated radiometric decay on a
young earth. 6 Even if the fossil succession is more or less
accurate for England, the question of the validity of the
geological column really boils down to how well the original
fossil order from England represents a worldwide order. This
question must be answered empirically. The literature indicates
that a general order seems to exist but problems occur in the
details. This does not imply that an evolutionary order exists,
but it is a burial sequence during the Genesis Flood. Local
columns show general order The justification for the global
column is that the small number of index fossils in any one area
still line up vertically in their expected order. Of course,
creationists should verify this vertical order, especially in
view of the problems discussed below. Trilobites and dinosaurs,
organisms from different environments, illustrate the concept of
a vertical fossil relationship. If every outcrop shows dinosaurs
always superimposed above trilobites, we can have general
confidence that this relationship holds as a worldwide
relationship in the Flood. Furthermore, if we find a region with
just trilobites, we can surmise that the strata were laid down
earlier than strata containing dinosaurs in another region.
Because of the many problems listed below, there may be
exceptions. So, in this case dinosaurs above trilobites would be
considered a general Flood order. Dinosaurs and trilobites lived
in quite different environments, and we would expect that to be
reflected in the vertical order of their fossils in the Flood.
However, I would be more cautious in developing a vertical order
with organisms from the same or similar environments, such as
various types of trilobites, cephalopods, foraminifers, diatoms,
etc. They mostly live in a marine environment and during the
Flood could have become vertically superimposed in any order,
unless there were other factors that could cause systematic
vertical relationships, such as ecological zonation, horizontal
separation, etc. The general order of the geological column
(Paleozoic below Mesozoic below Cenozoic) seems to be correct on
a broad scale in north central Wyoming and south central
Montana. Figure 1. Tilted Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata at the
northwest edge of the Bighorn Basin at Clark Canyon adjacent to
the southeast Beartooth Mountains. Figure 2. The erosional
remnant of Red Butte on the south rim of the Grand Canyon (view
west from Forest Road 320).
Paleozoic strata with trilobites, brachiopods, etc. and Mesozoic
strata with dinosaur fossils are commonly found in the
mountains, while Cenozoic strata with fossil mammals
predominantly occupy the basins and valleys. Paleozoic and
Mesozoic strata are often tilted at a high angle at a basin edge
against granite intrusions and uplifts of sedimentary rocks in
the northern Rocky Mountains (figure 1), while the Cenozoic
strata are nearly flat-lying in the center of the basins. The
uplifted Bighorn and Beartooth Mountains and the Bighorn Basin
in between are a good example. The Cenozoic strata of the
Bighorn Basin and the adjacent Clarks Fork Basin to the north
are well known for their fossil mammals. These Cenozoic basin
fills postdate the strata in the surrounding mountains. Assuming
that the Paleozoic and Mesozoic have typical index fossils for
those periods, the order of the fossils lines up with the
geological column in this area. Another example is the Grand
Staircase in northern Arizona and southern Utah. Although the
Grand Staircase is both a vertical and horizontal relationship,
in that the Mesozoic strata lie predominantly to the north of
the exposed Paleozoic strata of Grand Canyon, there is strong
evidence that the Mesozoic strata once lay above the Paleozoic
Grand Canyon. The Mesozoic strata were later eroded, leaving
remnants such as 300 m-high Red Butte along the southeast rim of
the Grand Canyon (figure 2). However, I would question the
Cenozoic age of the Wasatch Formation on top of the Mesozoic
section in Utah. I believe this formation was assigned to the
Cenozoic based on the assumption that strata on top of Mesozoic
must be early Cenozoic, and since the Wasatch Formation crops
out in basins to the north, the top strata likely were simply
rubberstamped as the Cenozoic Wasatch Formation. However, the
top formation of the Grand Staircase is no longer considered to
be the Wasatch Formation; it is the Claron Formation. 7 However,
the Claron Formation is still considered to be early Cenozoic.
The unique erosional forms of Bryce Canyon were carved in the
Claron Formation (figure 3). Fossils in the Claron Formation are
not abundant, 8 so it is unlikely that fossils can be used to
determine its age. If the formation was actually “Mesozoic”,
then only two of the three Phanerozoic eras of the geological
column are represented in the Grand Staircase. I question the
finer time divisions within the Paleozoic or Mesozoic, such as
the division between the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, etc.
The Paleozoic commonly contains marine deposits (one exception
being the claim that the Coconino sandstone is a desert deposit,
which is debatable). The environmental interpretation is based
on marine fossils such as trilobite tracks (figure 4) and
nautiloids (figure 5) found in the Grand Canyon and at other
locations. It is likely these organisms lived before the Flood,
and so the Paleozoic represents a marine burial sequence,
possibly by ecological zonation. Between the Cambrian Muav
Figure 5. Nautiloid from the Grand Canyon. Figure 3. Unique
erosional forms in Claron Formation of Bryce Canyon National
Park.
Figure 4. Trilobite tracks from the Grand Canyon (arrows). Photo
courtesy of Tom Vail
59 Papers JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (1) 2010
Limestone and the Devonian Temple
Butte Limestone, the Ordovician and Silurian periods, with their
120 Ma of geological time, are missing. The contact between the
Muav and Temple Butte is a disconformity, a break in deposition
or an erosional event between parallel beds. Figure 6 shows a
fold at the disconformity, implying little if any time gap,
because the lower limestone formation should have already been
lithified and thus could not have been folded parallel to the
upper formation. If the geological column is an exact Flood
sequence, this disconformity would represent a period of erosion
or nondeposition between the Muav and Temple Butte Limestones
during the Flood. However, if the geological column is merely a
general order, there is no reason to suggest a period of
nondeposition or erosion between the two limestones. The
specific index fossils for those periods simply were not
deposited. I might add that the Ordovician and Silurian are also
considered absent in practically all of Montana, 9 likely
because of missing index fossils. If someone found an index
fossil for the Ordovician, you can be sure that strata now
labeled Cambrian or Devonian would become Ordovician or
Silurian. Reed 10 advocated that creationists with geological
knowledge become familiar with the geology and paleontology of
their local area for eventual regional scale investigation. We
can focus just on the rock record and develop our own local
geological columns. In this way we would be able to analyze the
rock record from each local area and relate it to a global Flood
model. Problems for the geological column Despite propaganda by
evolutionary and uniformitarian scientists that the fossil order
is an exact global order with time, there are numerous problems
and anomalies that make this assertion questionable. I can only
briefly mention these problems, since they could be amplified
into a whole book. 1) Vertical sequence of geological column is
often horizontal in the field Many think that the geological
column is a vertical, onion-skinned model, which has the same
vertical sequence in most areas. Actually, the vertical fossil
scheme is mostly derived from lateral relationships. The reason
for this is because only a small number of the ten Phanerozoic
geological periods are represented as a vertical sequence in any
local area, defined for analysis purposes by Figure 6.
Disconformity between the Muav Limestone and Temple Butte
Limestone in the Grand Canyon. Notice how folding affects both
formations. Woodmorappe as a 406 by 406 km square. 11 Two-thirds
of Earth’s land surface has five or fewer of the ten geological
periods in place. Only 15–20% of Earth’s land surface has even
three geological periods in correct consecutive order. This is a
conservative estimate in favor of the geological column because
Woodmorappe used any suggestion of a period being in a square as
evidence that the period existed in that particular square. His
squares are so large that it was difficult to establish a single
vertical sequence because of tectonics, facies changes, etc.,
and many of these local geological columns should be verified
lithologically. Regardless, the global and continental columns
mainly represent a horizontal sequence. Unless there are better
empirical correlations, it may be difficult to know the exact
time sequence in the Flood over such large areas. For instance,
the late Paleozoic is well represented by coal from trees such
as lycopods in the Appalachian Mountains, while in Montana and
Wyoming the coal (figure 7) contains angiosperms and
gymnosperms. The coal in Montana and Wyoming is dated as “early
Cenozoic”, much younger than the Appalachian lycopods in the
geological column. But, the different trees really represent a
horizontal separation. Whether or not the different plants
making up the coals represent a time sequence in the Flood must
be determined empirically. The horizontal relationship of index
fossils is also a global phenomenon. 1 In a study of 34 index
fossils, Woodmorappe found that only rarely are more than a
third and never more than a half of these index fossils
simultaneously present in any 320 km-diameter region on Earth.
And even those index fossils found in a particular region are
rarely vertically superimposed. The problem is that it is
doubtful enough that these local relationships can be traced
horizontally to know whether the global geological column really
represents a vertical sequence. For example, the coals from the
Appalachians and from the Montana/Wyoming area could have been
laid down at the same time in the Flood. So, the global
geological column is built by extrapolating periods and index
fossils from each area into a global sequence. How well this
global sequence lines up with reality and represents a Flood
order requires much more research, but I am skeptical that each
period in the geological column represents a consistent part of
an absolute sequence of events in the Flood model. 2) Changing
fossil ranges in the geological column In order to discuss
fossil order, we need to know the three-dimensional distribution
of fossils. Fossils come from scattered outcrops and boreholes.
We know very little of the subsurface distribution of fossils.
The more scientists examine the rocks, the more the ranges of
fossils are extended in the geological column. 12 For instance,
organisms thought to have been extinct for millions of years
sometimes are found alive in remote locations on Earth. These
organisms are called living fossils. Logically, these organisms
must have lived during later geological periods where their
fossils have not been discovered. If this applies to many other
organisms, fossil ranges for many organisms can be greatly
extended upward toward the present. One of the most recent
outstanding examples of a living fossil is the Wollemi Pine
(figure 8), found in a gorge in the Blue Mountains, 200 km west
of Sydney, Australia. 13 The Wollemi Pine was thought extinct
since the Jurassic period— about 150 Ma ago on the
uniformitarian timescale. This means that the Wollemi Pine
should exist in strata between the Jurassic and the present. One
researcher described the discovery like “finding a live
dinosaur”. 13 Obviously, no evolution of the Wollemi pine has
occurred for an alleged 150 Ma. Given its absence in strata
younger than “Jurassic”, those 150 Ma may never have existed.
One would expect abundant Wollemi pine fossils during this 150
Ma period. Catastrophic burial about 4,500 years ago is a better
explanation for living fossils, such as the Wollemi pine. A
sponge, called Nucha? vancouverensis sp. nov., was found in the
upper Triassic of Vancouver Island. 14 Surprisingly, this sponge
is nearly identical to one previously found only in the Middle
Cambrian of western New South Wales, Australia, which was named
Nucha naucum . 15 The fossil has not been found in strata within
the supposed 300 Ma intervening years. Assuming that the
paleontological analysis on these sponges is correct, the range
of Nucha is significantly expanded upward in the geological
column, and one wonders whether the 300 Ma between the Cambrian
and the Permian are real. The above situations are not rare. 14
These examples should make us aware that paleontologists do not
know the three-dimensional distribution of fossils, and that the
many millions of years between the same or similar fossils may
not exist. Fossil ranges have also been extended downward in the
geological column. For instance, vertebrates have been pushed
back into the Cambrian 16,17 where 50% to possibly as high as
85% of all phyla originated in what is now called the Cambrian
Big Bang. 18 Sharks have been pushed back 25 Ma into the Late
Ordovician. 19 Vascular plants have also been pushed back 25 Ma
into the Early Silurian. 19 Based on tracks, arthropods invaded
the land 40 Ma earlier (Late Cambrian) than previously thought.
20,21 The discovery of a possible winged insect would push back
the origin of winged insects and flight by more than 80 Ma into
the early Silurian, which in turn has caused the supposed first
land plants to be pushed back into the Ordovician. 22,23 If
their analysis of organic molecules is correct, evolutionists
believe that they have pushed back the origin of eukaryote cells
1 to 2.7 Ga ago in the late
Figure 8. Wollemi Pine from Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
Figure 7. Part of Wyodak coal seam just east of Gillette,
Wyoming. Photo by Fritz Geller-Grimm < wikimedia.org> 61 Papers
JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (1) 2010
Archean. 24,25 This raises interesting questions for both
evolutionists and creationists. Where are the remains of all the
billions of organisms with eukaryote cells that lived between
2.7 Ga ago and the time of the Cambrian Big Bang (500 Ma ago) in
the evolutionary model? Since the molecules were found in
sedimentary rocks, does this mean that Archean and Proterozoic
sedimentary rocks are from the Flood? 3) Different names for the
same or similar fossil from different ages It is not an uncommon
phenomenon to find the same or similar fossils in strata of
different ages that have been given different names . Very few
non-specialists would be aware of this phenomenon. This practice
masks the true range of fossils within the geological column.
Tosk 26 documented that the same or similar foraminifera are not
only given different names when found in strata of different
ages, but also are sometimes placed in different superfamilies.
Woodmorappe 27 found that much of the stratigraphic order of
cephalopods is due to time-stratigraphic concepts and taxonomic
manipulation. Both cephalopods and foraminifera are important
index fossils. The same situation occurs with plants. Rees et al
. complain: “Indeed, it is sometimes necessary to ‘side- step’
traditional paleobotanical taxonomy, which is often hindered by
political and regional biases (ensuring a highly specialized
local but limited global view), as well as stratigraphic biases
(with what is effectively the ‘same’ fossil plant type being
assigned to a different genus or species depending upon its
age).” 28 4) Taxonomic manipulation Another problem mentioned by
Woodmorappe 27 is that slightly different features in
cephalopods have been used to date a layer of strata to a
different age. These slightly different biological features
cause one type of organism to be split into a different species,
genera, families, etc. Since taxonomic splitters have had the
upper hand in taxonomy, how meaningful are such taxonomic and
age manipulations to the geological column? We know that species
of living organisms, like dogs and pigeons, have a great
morphological variety. How do we know whether the variety found
in an extinct organism is not from intraspecies variation?
Within creationist biological terms, such variation would be
considered within the same Genesis kind or baramin . For
example, one type of trilobite might date a layer as Cambrian
while a slight change in anatomy in another trilobite in another
layer will cause that particular layer to be dated as Silurian.
Are they different kinds of trilobites or variations within one
kind?
Figure 10. The contact of the Lewis “ overthrust ” northeast of
Marias Pass.
Figure 11. Close-up of the contact of the Lewis “ overthrust ”
northeast of Marias Pass. There are stringers of Altyn Dolomite
in shale below contact.
Figure 9. Lewis “ overthrust ” (arrow) northeast of Marias Pass,
Montana (view northeast). The “ Precambrian ” Altyn Dolomite is
the light colored layer in the center of the picture while the
Appekunny Argillite is the dark colored rock above. “ Cretaceous
” shale lies below the dolomite. Note the horizontal beds of the
shale, which are either undeformed or only mildly deformed below
the contact. 62 Papers JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (1) 2010
6) Out-of-order fossils A second type of anomaly in the fossil
record is the situation in which “older” fossils are found above
rocks that contain “young” fossils. These out-of-order fossils
are the opposite of the evolutionary hypothesis. Out-of-order
fossils are considered “impossible” by evolutionists, and so are
dismissed as the result of overthrusting. An overthrust involves
“older” strata being pushed over “younger” strata at an angle
less than 45°. Robinson 31 claimed that overthrusts are based on
geophysical evidence and not out-of-order fossils. This is true
for some, but the Lewis overthrust in Montana and Alberta
(figures 9–11) was identified based on fossils. In the Lewis
“overthrust”, Precambrian rocks supposedly slid tens of
kilometers eastward up a low slope over “Cretaceous” rocks.
There is a 900 Ma out-of-order time gap at the Lewis
“overthrust”, and this time gap was first based on out- of-order
fossils. Bailey Willis 32 first hypothesized the “overthrust” in
1902 after he found “Precambrian crustacean shells” in the upper
block above the “Cretaceous” strata. The Lewis Overthrust may or
may not be a true overthrust, but the determination should be
made by geological and geophysical methods and not by fossils.
Another famous example of an overthrust is the Heart Mountain
detachment in north central Wyoming. It is not a true overthrust
but the upper block actually slid down a slight decline and
broke up into many smaller blocks. That is why it is now called
a detachment fault. Heart Mountain north of Cody, Wyoming, is
the most famous example (figure 12). The Heart Mountain
Detachment is real and there is evidence for motion, such as
broken rock at the detachment surface. 33 So in this case, there
is a structural explanation for the out-of-order fossils. A
modern analog for the Heart Mountain Detachment 34 was
discovered when large blocks of lava detached from Hawaii and
slid into the deep ocean. 35 In the South Kona Landslide, one
huge block broke up into large pieces, up to 700 m high and 11.5
by 7.5 km in area. It slid up to 80 km oceanward—the last 40 km
over relatively flat ocean bottom. These blocks are larger than
the Heart Mountain Detachment blocks. Most uniformitarian
geologists believe that the Heart Mountain Detachment was
catastrophic, occurring within a matter of minutes or hours. 33
In such cases, there is evidence of overthrusting or reverse
faulting. A reverse fault is the case where a block is shoved up
over other rock at an angle greater than 45°. I believe that
there is evidence of thick-skinned reverse faults and even
overthrusts. For instance, in some regions of the Bighorn and
northeast Beartooth Mountains of south central Montana and north
central Wyoming, granite has been pushed east or northeast up an
approximately 30° slope. 36,37 Such thick-skinned (granite is
involved) overthrusts are supported by seismic profiles and
wells These problems make it difficult to take seriously the
separation of the periods within the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. The
Paleozoic may simply represent mostly marine deposition during
the Flood. Trilobites buried at nearly the same time are
assigned from the Cambrian to the Permian in the uniformitarian
system. On the other hand, the organisms of the Mesozoic are
much different, and generally above Paleozoic fossils where they
are found vertically superimposed. So, the order of the
geological column seems like a general sequence from a Flood
depositional point of view, but with lots of exceptions in the
details. 5) Anomalous fossils Evolutionists often tell us that
there are no contradictions to the evolutionary fossil order.
However, they have to explain many anomalies in order to make
the geological column “consistent”. One type of anomaly is
finding two fossils of different ages in the same layer. If the
evolutionist cannot extend the stratigraphic range of the
fossils, he must determine which fossil represents the true
“age”. If the strata are considered young, the “old” fossil is
simply assumed to have been “reworked”, eroded from “much older”
strata and incorporated into younger sediments. Often, their
only criterion for reworking is an expected evolutionary order
rather than the condition of the fossil. However, if “old”
organisms are reworked into “young” strata, wouldn’t the “old”
fossil be pulverized? In the opposite case, a “young” fossil is
found in “old” strata, and evolutionists assume that the
“younger” organism was buried within “old” sediment and
fossilized. This is called “downwash”. This could happen if a
“young” organism became trapped and fossilized in a cave,
sinkhole, or bog within “old” sediment or sedimentary rock. If
the strata remain unconsolidated until after the “young”
organism is buried, it would be difficult for the “old” organism
to have remain unfossilized for millions of years. Whether a
fossil is considered reworked or down-washed should not depend
on preconceived ideas about age or fossil succession; there
should be evidence for such an event. Woodmorappe 29 compiled
200 published instances of anomalous fossils from the
literature. This was not an exhaustive search. Most of these
instances involved microfossils, which is why I am especially
skeptical of the biostratigraphy of various microfossil groups,
such as foraminifers and diatoms. Taxonomic manipulation, along
with reworking, casts doubt on the use of microfossils as index
fossils. Anomalous fossil occurrences are not rare. 30
Furthermore, if evolutionists under-report examples of anomalous
fossils, they may be quite common, while evidence for reworking
or downwash is rare! It seems that reworking is just an ad hoc
explanation to make the geological column “consistent”. The real
impact of anomalous fossils would be to broaden the fossil range
in the geological column, thereby reducing confidence in index
fossils.
drilled on the eastern edge of the granite that pass into
sedimentary rock. The fault zone of the Beartooth thrust
consists of 21 m of shattered granite above 37 m of severely
faulted sedimentary rocks. 38 Such evidence should also exist
with thin-skinned “overthrusts”, in which sedimentary rock is
pushed over sedimentary rock. However, I have seen a number of
overthrusts in Montana and southern Alberta where there is
usually little or no evidence for displacements of km to tens of
km uphill over a slope less than 45°. 39 Some “overthrusts”
display a reversed metamorphic grade in which the upper block is
more highly metamorphosed than the lower block. Metamorphism is
supposed to increase with increasing depth. So, this is support
for the overthrust concept in these cases. However, it is
possible that the metamorphic grade associated with
“overthrusts” could be chemically caused 40 or caused by the
migration of heat and fluids during deformation. 41 Overthrusts,
if they are real, could possibly be explained by catastrophic
underwater emplacements during the Flood. Creationists need a
comprehensive analysis of overthrusts. The fact is that there
are hundreds of alleged overthrusts and they seem to occur in
most mountain ranges of the world. Yet mountains are usually the
few places to observe a thick vertical sequence and so one is
forced to conclude that out-of-order strata are common. A real
overthrust should show abundant physical evidence. Relying just
on fossils is unreasonable. If these strata cannot be tied to a
real overthrust, then the fossil distribution in the geological
column is contrary to evolutionary predictions. Conclusion In
order to show that the geological column is an exact sequence
for either the uniformitarian or Flood paradigm one must first
develop local and regional columns and then show that these have
a continental and global consistency. However, the local
columns, which are more empirical, become more theoretical and
speculative as one extrapolates to larger areas. As far as the
broad arrangement of fossils is concerned, the geological column
seems to be generally consistent where observed in vertical
sections in the western United States. This gives some
confidence that the general order can be applied elsewhere in
the world. But when we get into the fine detail of the
geological column such as the divisions of the eras, there is
much reason for skepticism, especially where the environment of
the fossils is similar. At any one location, the geological
column seems to be less a vertical sequence and more a broad
horizontal sequence. This sequence is based on index fossils
from scattered outcrops that likely are difficult to correlate
lithologically. The validity of such fossil correlations is
suspect because fossil discoveries continue to expand fossil
ranges in the geological column. Furthermore, different names
are given to the same or a similar fossil found in strata of
different “ages”. Correct taxonomic classification would likely
expand the time-range of fossils even more. All this makes the
use of index fossils for dating within the fine divisions of the
column highly suspect. If the observed fossil distribution were
the only consideration then the time-range of fossils would be
expanded even further due to several other problems including
taxonomic manipulations, anomalous fossils, and out-of-order
fossils. The overall effect of these problems and the way they
are treated by the paleontological community is difficult to
quantify but there is no doubt that they result in an
unwarranted reduction in the time-range of fossils. Without
these problems the time-range for index fossils used to date
strata would be even greater, making the fine divisions within
the geological column even more questionable. These issues and
problems should make geologists cautious about applying the
geological column to the Flood.
References
1. Woodmorappe, J., A diluviological treatise on the
stratigraphic separation of fossils; in: Studies in Flood
Geology , 2 nd ed., Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX,
pp. 23–75, p. 24, 1999. 2. Mortenson, T., The historical
development of the old-earth geological time-scale; in: Reed,
J.K. and Oard, M.J. (Eds.), The Geologic Column: Perspectives
Within Diluvial Geology , Creation Research Society, Chino
Valley, AZ, ch. 2, pp. 7–30, 2006. 3. McKee, B., Cascadia: the
Geological Evolution of the Pacific Northwest , McGraw-Hill Book
Company, New York, pp. 24–30, 1972. 4. Woodmorappe, J., The
Mythology of Modern Dating Methods , Institute for Creation
Research, Dallas, TX, CA, 1999.
Figure 12. Heart Mountain, northwest Bighorn Basin. The light
colored strata at the top of Heart Mountain are “ Paleozoic ”
limestone and dolomite, which lies on top of valley fill
sediments (view north).
64 Papers JOURNAL OF CREATION 24 (1) 2010
5. Vardiman, L., Snelling, A.A. and Chaffin E.F. (Eds.),
Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth
Creationist Research Initiative , Institute for Creation
Research, Dallas, TX and Creation Research Society, Chino
Valley, AZ, 2000. 6. Vardiman, L., Snelling, A.A. and Chaffin
E.F. (Eds), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a
Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative , Institute for
Creation Research, Dallas, TX and Creation Research Society,
Chino Valley, AZ, 2005. 7. Harris, A.G., Tuttle, E. and Tuttle,
S.D., Geology of National Parks , (5 th ed.), Kendall/Hunt
Publishing Company, Dubuque, IA, pp. 43–54, 1997. 8. Harris et
al ., ref. 7, pp. 52–53. 9. Perry, E.S., Montana in the Geologic
Past , Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology Bulletin 26, Butte,
MT, p. 24, 1962. 10. Reed, J.K., Strategic stratigraphy:
reclaiming the rock record! Journal of Creation 19 (2):119–127,
2005. 11. Woodmorappe, J., The essential nonexistence of the
evolutionary- uniformitarian geological column: a quantitative
assessment; in: Studies in Flood Geology , (2 nd ed.), Institute
for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, pp. 105–130, 1999. 12.
Woodmorappe, J., An anthology of matters significant to
creationism and diluviology: report 1; in: Studies in Flood
Geology , (2 nd ed.), Institute for Creation Research, Dallas,
TX, pp. 135–136, 1999. 13. Wieland, C., Sensational Australian
tree ... like “finding a live dinosaur”, Creation 17 (2):13,
1995. 14. Stanley, G. D., Triassic sponge from Vancouver Island:
possible holdover from the Cambrian, Canadian Journal of Earth
Sciences 35 :1037–1043, 1998. 15. Oard, M.J., How well do
paleontologists know fossil distributions? Journal of Creation
14 (1):7–8, 2000. 16. Oard, M.J., Evolution pushed further into
the past, Journal of Creation 10 (2):171–172, 1996. 17. Oard,
M.J., Origin of vertebrates confirmed in the Early Cambrian,
Journal of Creation 18 (1):10–11, 2004. 18. Meyer, S.C., Ross,
M., Nelson, P. and Chien, P., The Cambrian explosion: biology’s
big bang; in: Campbell, J.A. and Meyer, S.C. (Eds.), Darwin,
Design, and Public Education , Michigan State University Press,
East Lansing, MI, pp. 323–402, 2003. 19. Oard, M.J., Evolution
pushed further into the past, Journal of Creation 10
(2):171–172, 1996. 20. MacNaughton, R.B., Cole, J.M., Dalrymple,
R.W., Braddy, S.J., Briggs, D.E.G. and Lukie, T.D., First steps
on land: arthropod trackways in Cambrian-Ordovician aeolian
sandstone, southeastern Ontario, Canada, Geology 30 :391–394,
2002. 21. Oard, M.J., Arthropods supposedly invaded land 40
million years earlier, Journal of Creation 17 (2):3–4, 2003. 22.
Engel, M.S. and Grimaldi, D.A., New light shed on the oldest
insect, Nature 427 :627–630, 2004. 23. Oard, M.J., “Evolutionary
origins” continue to be pushed back in time, Journal of Creation
18 (3):7, 2004. 24. Brocks, J.J., Logan, G.A., Buick, R. and
Summons, R.E., Achaean molecular fossils and the early rise of
eukaryotes, Science 285 :1033–1036, 1999. 25. Oard, M.J.,
Supposed eukaryote evolution pushed back one billion years,
Journal of Creation 15 (1):4, 2001. 26. Tosk, T., Foraminifers
in the fossil record: implications for an ecological zonation
model, Origins 15 (1):8–18, 1988. 27. Woodmorappe, J., The
cephalopods in the creation and the universal Deluge; in:
Studies in Flood Geology , 2 nd ed., Institute for Creation
Research, Dallas, TX, pp. 179–197, 1999. 28. Rees, P.M.,
Ziegler, A.M. and Valdes, P.J., Jurassic phytogeography and
climates: new data and model comparisons; in: Huber, B.T.,
MacLeod, K.G. and Wing, S.L. (Eds.), Warm Climates in Earth
History , Cambridge University Press, London, pp. 297–318, 2000;
p. 301. 29. Woodmorappe, J., An anthology of matters significant
to creationist and diluviology: report 2; in: Studies in Flood
Geology , 2 nd ed., Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX,
pp. 87–92, 1999. 30. Woodmorappe, ref. 29, pp. 92–94. 31.
Robinson, S.J., Can Flood geology explain the fossil record?
Journal of Creation 10 (1):32–69, 1996; p. 35. 32. Willis, B.,
Stratigraphy and structure, Lewis and Livingstone Ranges,
Montana, Geological Society of America Bulletin 13 :305–352,
1902. 33. Beutner, E.C. and Gerbi, G.P., Catastrophic
emplacement of the Heart Mountain block slide, Wyoming and
Montana, USA, GSA Bulletin 117 :724–735, 2005. 34. Oard, M.J.,
Possible analogue for the Heart Mountain Detachment, Journal of
Creation 10 (1):3–4, 1996. 35. Moore, J.G., Bryan, W.B., Beeson,
M.H. and Normark, W.R., Giant blocks in the South Kona
Landslide, Hawaii, Geology 23 :125–128, 1995. 36. Wise, D.U.,
Laramide structures in basement and cover of the Beartooth
uplift near Red Lodge, Montana, AAPG Bulletin 84 (3):360–375,
2000. 37. Stone, D.S., New interpretations of the Piney Creek
thrust and associated Granite Ridge tear fault, northeastern
Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming, Rocky Mountain Geology 38
(2):205–235, 2003. 38. Wise, ref. 36, p. 366. 39. Woodmorappe,
ref. 29, pp. 86–87. 40. Silvestru, E., personal communication.
41. Hubbard, M.S., Ductile shear as a cause of inverted
metamorphism: example from the Nepal Himalaya, Journal of
Geology 104 :493–499, 1996.
6. Michael J. Oard has an M.S. in Atmospheric Science from the
University of Washington and is now retired after working as a
professional meteorologist with the US National Weather Service
in Montana for 30 years. He is the author of An Ice Age Caused
by the Genesis Flood, Ancient Ice Ages or Gigantic Submarine
Landslides ? , Frozen in Time and Flood by Design . He serves on
the board of the Creation Research Society .
---
Evidences for a young age of the earth and universe
by Don Batten
HTML http://creation.com/young-universe-evidence
No scientific method can prove the age of the universe or the
earth. All calculated ages involve making assumptions about the
past: the starting time of the ‘clock’, the speed of the clock
and that the clock was never disturbed.
There is no independent natural clock against which we can test
the assumptions. For example, the amount of cratering on the
moon, based on currently observed cratering rates, suggests that
the moon is quite old. However, to draw this conclusion we have
to assume that the rate of cratering has always been the same as
it is now. There is now good reason to think that cratering
might have been quite intense in the past, so the craters do not
indicate an old age at all.
No scientific method can prove the age of the universe or the
earth.
Age calculations assume the rates of change of processes in the
past were the same as we observe today—called the principle of
uniformitarianism. If the age calculated disagrees with what the
investigator thinks the age should be, he/she concludes that the
assumptions did not apply in this case, and adjusts them
accordingly. If the calculated result gives an acceptable age,
the investigator accepts it.
Examples of young ages listed here also rely upon the same
principle of uniformitarianism. Long-age proponents will dismiss
any evidence for a young earth by arguing that the assumptions
about the past do not apply in these cases. In other words, age
is not really a matter of scientific observation but rather an
argument over our assumptions about the unobserved past.
We cannot prove the assumptions behind the evidences presented
here. However, such a wide range of different phenomena, all
suggesting much younger ages than are generally assumed, makes a
strong case for questioning those ages (about 14 billion years
for the universe and 4.5 billion years for the solar system).
Such a wide range of different phenomena, all suggesting much
younger ages than are generally assumed, makes a strong case for
questioning those ages
A number of the evidences don’t give an estimate of age but
challenge the assumption of slow-and-gradual uniformitarianism,
upon which all deep-time dating methods depend. They thus bring
into question the vast ages claimed.
Creationist scientists discovered many of the young age
indicators when researching things that were supposed to ‘prove’
long ages. There is a lesson here: when skeptics throw up some
challenge to the Bible’s timeline, don’t fret over it.
Eventually that supposed ‘proof’ will likely be overturned and
turn out to be evidence for a younger creation. On the other
hand, with further research some of the evidences listed here
might turn out to be ill-founded. Such is the nature of
historical science, because we cannot do experiments on past
events.1
Science entails observation, and the only reliable means of
telling the age of anything is by the testimony of a reliable
witness who observed the events. The Bible claims to be the
communication of the only One who witnessed the events of
Creation: the Creator Himself. As such, the Bible is the only
reliable means of knowing the age of the creation.2
In the end, the Bible will stand vindicated and those who deny
its testimony will be confounded. That same Bible also tells us
of God’s judgment on those who reject His right to rule over
them. But it also tells us of His willingness to forgive us for
our rebellious behaviour. The coming of Jesus Christ (who was
intimately involved in the creation process at the beginning
(John 1:1–3)) into the world, has made this possible (see p.
18).
Here are 18 evidences from various fields of science. See
creation.com/age for 101 evidences (literally!).
Lazarus bacteria—bacteria revived from salt inclusions
supposedly 250 million years old, suggest the salt is much
younger.3
The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly harmful
mutations added each generation is consistent with an origin
several thousand years ago.4
Dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels and proteins are not
consistent with their supposed age, but make more sense if the
fossils are young.5
Thick, tightly bent rock strata with no signs of melting or
fracturing. These wipe out hundreds of millions of years of time
and are consistent with extremely rapid formation during the
biblical Flood.6
Polystrate fossils—for example, broken vertical tree trunks in
northern and southern hemisphere coal that traverse many strata
indicate rapid burial and accumulation of the organic material
that became coal, eliminating many millions of years.7
Flat gaps—where one rock layer sits on another rock layer but
with supposedly millions of years of time missing, yet the
contact plane lacks significant erosion. E.g. Redwall Limestone
/ Tapeats Sandstone in the Grand Canyon (more than a 100 million
year gap).8
The amount of salt in the world’s oldest lake contradicts its
supposed age and suggests an age consistent with its formation
after Noah’s Flood.9
Erosion at Niagara Falls and similar places is consistent with
a few thousand years since the Flood.10
Measured rates of stalactite and stalagmite growth in limestone
caves are consistent with an age of several thousand years.11
Carbon-14 in all coal suggests that the coal is only thousands
of years old.12
The amount of helium, a product of decay of radioactive
elements, retained in zircons in granite is consistent with an
age of 6,000±2000 years, not the supposed billions of years.13
The amount of lead in zircons from deep drill cores vs. shallow
ones is similar. But there should be less in the deep ones due
to the higher heat causing higher diffusion rates over the long
ages supposed. If the ages are only thousands of years, this
would explain the similarity.14
Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Earth’s moon
contradicts the supposed vast age—it should have long since
cooled if it were billions of years old.15
Presence of magnetic fields on Uranus and Neptune, which should
be “dead” according to evolutionary long-age beliefs. Assuming a
solar system age of thousands of years, physicist Russell
Humphreys accurately predicted the strengths of the magnetic
fields of Uranus and Neptune.16
Methane on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—it should all be gone
in just 10,000 years because of UV-induced breakdown to ethane.
And the large quantities of ethane are not there either.17
Speedy stars are consistent with a young age for the universe.
For example, many stars in the dwarf galaxies in the Local Group
are moving away from each other at speeds of 10–12 km/s. At
these speeds, the stars should have dispersed in 100 million
years, which, compared with the supposed 14 billion-year age of
the universe, is a short time.18
Spiral structure in galaxies should be lost in much less than
200 million years. This is inconsistent with their claimed age
of many billions of years. The discovery of ‘young’ spiral
galaxies highlights the problem of the assumed evolutionary
ages.19
The existence of short-period comets (orbits of less than 200
years), is consistent with an age of the solar system of less
than 10,000 years.20
References and notes
See, Batten, D., ‘It’s not science’, 2002. Return to text.
Williams, A., The Universe’s Birth Certificate, Creation
30(1):31, 2007, Sarfati, J., Biblical chronogenealogies, Journal
of Creation 17(3):14–18, 2003. Return to text.
Oard, M., Aren’t 250 million year old live bacteria a bit
much?, 2001. Return to text.
Sanford, J., Genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome,
Ivan Press, 2005; see: Plant geneticist: ‘Darwinian evolution is
impossible’, Creation 30(4):45–47, 2008. Realistic modelling
shows that genomes are young, in the order of thousands of
years. See Sanford, J., et al., Mendel’s Accountant: A
biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program,
SCPE 8(2):147–165, 2007;
www.scpe.org/vols/vol08/no2/SCPE_8_2_02.pdf. Return to text.
Wieland, C., Dinosaur soft tissue and protein—even more
confirmation!, 2009. Return to text.
Allen, D., Warped earth, Creation 25(1):40–43, 2002. Return to
text.
Walker, T., Coal: memorial to the Flood, Creation 23(2):22–27,
2001; Wieland, C., Forests that grew on water, Creation
18(1):20–24, 1995. Return to text.
‘Millions of years’ are missing (interview with Dr Ariel Roth),
Creation 31(2):46–49, 2009. Return to text.
Williams, A., World’s oldest salt lake only a few thousand
years old, Creation 17(2):5, 1995. Return to text.
Pierce, L., Niagara Falls and the Bible, Creation 22(4):8–13,
2000. Return to text.
Wieland, C., Caving in to reality, Creation 20(1):14, 1997.
Also Q&A on limestone caves; creation.com/caves. Return to text.
What about carbon dating? Creation Answers Book chapter 4.
Return to text.
Humphreys, D.R., Young helium diffusion age of zircons supports
accelerated nuclear decay, in Vardiman, L., Snelling, A. and
Chaffin, E. (eds.), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, ICR
and CRS, 848 pp., 2005. Return to text.
Gentry, R., et al., Differential lead retention in zircons:
Implications for nuclear waste containment, Science
216(4543):296–298, 1982; DOI: 10.1126/science.216.4543.296.
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DeYoung, D.B., Transient lunar phenomena: a permanent problem
for evolutionary models of Moon formation, Journal of Creation
17(1):5–6, 2003; creation.com/tlp; Walker, T., and Catchpoole,
D., Lunar volcanoes rock long-age timeframe, Creation 31(3):18,
2009. Return to text.
See creation.com/magfield#planets. Return to text.
Anon., Saturnian surprises, Creation 27(3):6. Return to text.
Bernitt, R., Fast stars challenge big bang origin for dwarf
galaxies, Journal of Creation 14(3):5–7, 2000. Return to text.
McIntosh, A., and Wieland, C., ‘Early’ galaxies don’t fit,
Creation 25(2):28–30, 2003. Return to text.
Faulkner, D., Comets and the age of the solar system, Journal
of Creation 11(3):264–273, 1997. Return to text.
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