The geological column is a general Flood order with many exceptions Michael J. Oard
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j24_2/j24_2_78-82.pdfJOURNAL 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
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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.
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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.
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Limestone caves: A Result of Noah’s Flood?
by Robert Doolan, John Mackay, Dr Andrew Snelling and Dr Allen Hallby
http://creation.com/limestone-cavesLate 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).
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The heritage trail at Siccar Point, Scotland
Commemorating an idea that did not work
by Tas Walker
http://creation.com/siccar-point-trailCiccar-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-interest-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.
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Can Flood geology explain thick chalk beds?
by Andrew A. Snelling
http://creation.com/can-flood-geology-explain-thick-chalk-bedsMost 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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