Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

SUPER-COMPUTER TRACKS PROTEIN BUILDERS, according to a report in
ScienceNOW 27 Oct 2005. Proteins are made of small molecules called amino
acids which need to be strung together in the correct order for the protein
to function. The process of assembling proteins is carried out by a complex
piece of cellular machinery called a ribosome. Individual amino acids are
brought to the ribosome by molecules called transfer RNA's (tRNA's).
Transfer RNA's must line up precisely with another molecule called messenger
RNA (mRNA) which carries the information from DNA. To ensure the correct
amino acids are lined up in the correct sequence each tRNA must match three
genetic code letters with code letters on the mRNA. To understand how tRNA
move through the ribosome and matches code letters with the mRNA a team of
scientists led by structural biologist Kevin Sanbonmatsu has used the sixth
fastest supercomputer in the world to calculate all the molecular
interactions involved and simulate the movement of the tRNA through the
ribosome. They found that the tRNA has a previously unknown extra hinge
where it holds the amino acid and the ribosome has a special loop that the
tRNA must fit through. If the tRNA letters do not exactly fit the mRNA
letters it will run into this loop rather than fit through it.

ED. COM. If it takes a team of clever scientists and a supercomputer just to
follow the process of putting amino acids in the right place, imaging the
creative genius of One who designed and built the protein building machinery
in the first place, without a supercomputer. Ribosomes contain over 50
different proteins and numerous types of RNA which must all work together in
a very precise way. It is foolish to imagine that chance random processes
invented the kind of precision machinery revealed by this study. (Ref.
computers, synthesis, biochemistry)

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FISH INSPIRED CAR described in Royal Auto Club Magazine The Road Ahead,
August/September 2005, p4. (Whole article quoted)  "Daimler Chrysler has
turned to nature, and the boxfish in particular, to bolster its
understanding of aerodynamics and design. The boxy tropical fish is
incredibly streamlined, a fact confirmed by DC engineers who they tested a
model in wind tunnel. Their study spawned the Mercedes-Benz Bionic concept
car, modelled on the humble box fish. It has groundbreaking direct injection
diesel technology, a drag coefficient of just 0.19 and will be shown later
this year in the U.S. Studying the boxfish's skin, made up of bony plates,
also enabled Benz engineers to alter construction methods to boost the
concept car's rigidity and reduce its weight."

ED. COM. Learning about the boxfish skin and streamlining, then applying it
to cars took creative engineering. Therefore, the Daimler Chrysler engineers
should admit the boxfish is the product of a much smarter creative designer,
and give glory to its Creator - not "nature" but the Lord Jesus Christ, who
will hold them accountable if they deny the evidence He gave them. No-one
doubts that cars are created by intelligent engineers, even if they have
never seen one being made. Therefore, it is equally absurd to claim there is
no evidence for design in living organisms, which have more sophisticated
engineering in their structure and function. (Ref. biomimmicry, automobiles,
engineering)

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SUPER MOLECULAR BLUE FOUND, as reported in Nature vol 436, p791, 11 Aug
2005. For many years scientists have known that the same pigment,
anthocyanin is found in roses and also in cornflowers, but as the old saying
(almost) goes, roses are red and cornflowers are blue. A group of Japanese
scientists have worked out how the anthocyanin pigment gives cornflowers
their intense blue colour. It is combined into a complex structure called
protocyanin, where six anthocyanin molecules are combined with six flavone
glycoside molecules and held together by four metal ions - one iron, one
magnesium and two calcium ions. The scientists concluded: "The blue colour
in protocyanin is therefore developed by a tetranuclear metal complex, which
may represent a new to supermolecular pigment."

ED. COM. This complex chemistry reminds us that blue flowers are good
evidence for creation. The only way human scientists have been able to make
blue flowers is by genetic engineering, i.e. taking genes for blueness out
of one plant and putting them into another by deliberate creative
manipulation. Furthermore, no human scientists designed the genes that have
been moved from blue flowers to non-blue flowers - they simply copied what
was already there. It took a much smarter genetic engineer to design the
genes for blueness out of nothing and today's gene manipulators have no
excuse for not acknowledging the Creator. (Ref. colours, genetics, flowers)

[Soldier4Christ]

ADAPTABLE BIRDS CATCH CATERPILLARS, as described in Science, vol 310,
p304 and ScienceNOW 14 Oct 2005. Great tits are small European birds that
breed each Spring and feed on caterpillars. As they need the most food when
they are raising their young, it is useful for the birds they lay their eggs
in time to hatch when caterpillars are most abundant. The time of
caterpillar abundance varies each year depending how early the warm spring
weather starts, so it is also useful if the birds are able to vary their
breeding time. Ecologist Marcel Visser of the Netherlands Institute of
Ecology and colleagues have studied data on breeding habits of great tits
living in a Netherlands national park from the past 32 years to see if the
birds could vary their breeding habits with variations in climate. Most of
the birds did not change their breeding habits, but some birds appeared to
be tuned in to climate variation and laid their eggs earlier in warm Springs
and later in cool Springs. These adaptable birds had more surviving
offspring than the less flexible birds. Most interesting is that the ability
to adapt appears to be passed on to the next generation, i.e. it is
genetically programmed. The researchers say there is not enough long term
data to be sure that the birds are evolving greater flexibility but they
think that the more adaptable birds will come to dominate the population.

ED. COM. This study cannot prove that birds are evolving flexibility. It
proves that some birds are able to change their breeding cycle with seasonal
variations and some aren't. The fact that more of the flexible birds are
surviving is not evolution because they already had the ability to do this
and when the climate changed they had an advantage over the less flexible
birds. This is natural selection, but it is not evolution. (Ref. adaptation,
climate, ecology)

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TOUCHY FEELY FLYING reported in an article in ScienceNOW, 14 Nov 2005.
Bats are well known for their ability to fly in the dark using echolocation,
a type of aerial sonar, to find their way around obstacles and capture prey
on the wing, but they also need to be able to detect airflow and turbulence
in order to make the right wing movements for complex manoeuvring. John
Zook, a biologist at Ohio University has studied a network of tiny bumps on
the surface of bat wings and found they contain cells similar to a type of
touch sensor called Merckel cells. He also found these had tiny hairs
projecting from the surface. He then recorded electrical signals from the
bumps and found they were sensitive to air flowing over the surface. He
proposed that movement of the hairs enable the bat to detect changes in
airflow patterns over the bats wings and help it fly more efficiently. To
test this theory he treated two bats with a cream that dissolves hair and
then filmed them flying. The bats managed to fly normally in a straight line
but had problems making turns to avoid obstacles. When the hairs re-grew the
bats were able to make complex aerial movements again. Greg Miller, who
wrote the ScienceNOW article commented that Georges Cuvier, an eighteenth
century French scientist, proposed back in the 1780's that bats use their
sense of touch to fly in the dark. It seems he was partly right.

ED. COM. This study is a good challenge to the usual evolutionary story of
bats evolving from a non-flying mammal by growing long fingers with skin
stretched over them because it shows there is more to flying that just
having wings. In order to fly an animal must be able to sense where it is in
three dimensional space, and be able to sense whether the air can hold it up
at any one moment. Both of these functions require complex systems of
sensors and the brain power to interpret the information and make the
necessary movements of the wings. (Ref. aerodynamics, design, bats)

[Soldier4Christ]

The differences make the difference—differences in gene expression distinguish humans from primates

Ever since the time of Darwin, evolutionary scientists have noted the anatomical similarities between humans and the great apes including chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. Over the last few decades, molecular biologists have joined the fray, pointing out the similarities in DNA sequences. Previous estimates of genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees suggested they were 98.5–99% identical.1 However, after the sequencing of the chimpanzee genome last year, the DNA similarity was fixed at 96%.2 (See Chimp genome sequence very different from man.) Now, a new study highlights important differences that go beyond the DNA sequence.

Yoay Gilad and colleagues published a paper in the prestigious science journal Nature in which they report an analysis of differences in gene expression among humans and primates.3 Using a cDNA array (cDNA is complementary to mRNA and provides the exact code for proteins), they examined the expression of 907 genes in the liver from humans, chimpanzees, orangutans and rhesus macaques. They found a relatively large number of genes (110) that were expressed at different levels in humans and chimpanzees. In some cases, humans produce more of a particular gene product, and in other cases, less. This type of study of gene expression is quite different from those that investigate DNA sequences. Evolutionists themselves have suggested that gene regulation may be responsible for key differences between humans and chimpanzees.4

While the DNA sequence of a gene specifies the amino acid sequence of the protein, the expression level is the amount of the protein that is made. In other words, the DNA sequence spells out the code for producing a specific protein whereas the expression level is the number of copies that will be produced. The amount of protein that is produced can make a profound difference, and in some cases a more important difference than a change in the DNA sequence.

For example, the amount of melanin (dark pigment in the skin) can be altered by the amount of UV light exposure (the reason people “tan” in the summer). The DNA sequence that determines the proteins involved in melanin production does not change, but the amount of those proteins does change. An increase in the amount of protein can lead to an increase in the amount of melanin.

Often, the amount of a protein that is produced is determined by the functional equivalent of “thermostats” called transcription factors. Transcription factors are proteins that bind to DNA just in front of the sequence that codes for a particular gene. The transcription factors serve as molecular switches to determine whether a gene is turned on or off, and how much of each to make. Clearly, the control of gene expression is very important.

Yoay and colleagues compared the level of expression for the 907 gene products across the various primates. They suggested that the number of differentially expressed genes followed an evolutionary progression. Humans and chimpanzees allegedly diverged from a common ancestor 5 million years ago, orangutans 13 million years ago and Rhesus 70 million years ago. Therefore, humans should have the fewest number of differentially expressed genes with chimpanzees, then orangutans, and the most with the rhesus macaque.

While that trend is apparent (Table 1), there is a discrepancy. Chimpanzees are supposed to be more recently related to orangutans than rhesus macaques. However, chimpanzees have slightly more differentially expressed genes compared to orangutans than compared to rhesus. In addition, the orangutan has essentially the same number of differentially expressed genes with humans as with the rhesus macaques.

Although 60% of the genes had similar expression profiles across the different species, this still leaves 40% that are altered in at least one species relative to the others. For example, the researchers found 19 genes that were expressed differently by humans, but the same in each of the other species. Each species has certain genes that are expressed at different levels than in the other species.

There may be even more significant differences in gene expression in humans and the various primates. This study only compared the gene expression in adult livers. Other organs, especially the brain, are likely to show even more differences in gene expression than the liver. It is also possible that there are many other differences in gene expression during development. For example, some genes may be expressed differently at various times as a baby grows in the womb.

As a creationist, I believe that God made humans, chimpanzees, orangutans and rhesus macaques separately (but on the sixth day of creation week). While there is much similarity in DNA sequences and gene expression among them, there are also important differences. In this, as in other cases, the differences make the difference.
References and notes

   1. Wildman, D.E., Uddin, M., Liu, G., Grossman, L.I. and Goodman, M. 2003, Implications of natural selection in shaping 99.4% nonsynonymous DNA identity between humans and chimpanzees: Enlarging genus Homo, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100(12):7181–7188.
   2. The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium 2005. “Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome.” Nature 437:69–87.
   3. Gilad, Y., Oshlack, A., Smyth, G.K., Speed, T.P., and White, K.P. Expression profiling in primates reveals a rapid evolution of human transcription factors. Nature 440:242–245, 2006.
   4. King, M.C. & Wilson, A.C. Evolution at two levels in humans and chimpanzees. Science 188:107–116, 1975.

                  Chimpanzee       Orangutan       Rhesus macaque
Human                 110                  128                        176

Chimpanzee            -                     150                        141

Orangutan              -                        -                          129


Comparison of the number of differentially expressed genes in various primates. Adapted from Gilad, Y., Oshlack, A., Smyth, G.K., Speed, T.P., and White, K.P. Expression profiling in primates reveals a rapid evolution of human transcription factors, Nature 440:242–245, 2006.

[Soldier4Christ]

Anglican leader rejects creation

by Paul Taylor, AiG–UK

March 22, 2006

I have long suspected that the national leader of the world’s third largest denominational grouping would, eventually, come out against the biblical account of creation. Yesterday (March 21), Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was featured in a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian—a left-leaning daily newspaper in the UK. Although the Archbishop’s views on Genesis only comprised two column-inches in a four-page article, it was precisely these views that The Guardian chose to highlight for its front-page lead article: “Archbishop: stop teaching creationism” blazed the headline in large type.

Dr. Williams, the de facto head of the Church of England1 (also known as the “Anglican” church), was asked whether he was “comfortable” with the teaching of creationism in schools. “Ah, not very. Not very,” he replied. He continued:

    I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it’s not a theory alongside theories. It’s not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said, “Well, how am I going to explain all this … I know: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other categories, I think there’s just been a jarring of categories. It’s not what it’s about.

Could Dr. Williams, who implied that creation is not on the same par as the theory of evolution, be unaware of Article VI of the Church of England’s “Thirty-Nine Articles”? Article VI says this about the authority of the Bible:

    In the name of the Holy Scriptures we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.

Dr. Williams is a recognized master at choosing his words ultra-cautiously, in order (his critics say) to maintain his seat on the fence. But as shown here, Genesis does not give us this fence-sitting option, and that’s why Archbishop Williams’s comments caused such a stir around the UK.

It bears repeating on this website that the historical style of narrative used in the Genesis accounts about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph in chapters 12 to 50 is the same as the historical style used in chapters 1 to 11. Whether Dr. Williams chooses to accept it or not, it is clear that the writer of Genesis firmly believed that he was writing true history, as he penned the Bible’s first book (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as another Article of Dr. Williams’s church states). Moreover, the Reformers who penned the Articles more than 400 years ago knew that the vital doctrine of sin, for example, depends on a belief in the historical reality of Adam.

    Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. (Article IX)

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, under whose leadership the Thirty-Nine Articles were composed, was burned at the stake exactly 450 years ago to the day that Dr. Williams’s interview came out (March 21). It would probably not have occurred to Cranmer that four-and-a-half centuries later one of his successors would sign allegiance to the Articles without actually believing them.

Most of The Guardian’s interview with Archbishop Williams was actually taken up with examining his views on “moral issues,” including homosexuality in the church. Dr. Williams is torn between support for the U.S. Bishop of New Hampshire—the openly homosexual Gene Robinson—and the threat of secession by figures such as Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Lagos, Nigeria, leader of Anglicanism’s largest national church, who opposes homosexuality as unbiblical. I would submit that there is a clear connection between Dr. Williams’s “socially liberal” views and his rejection of Genesis as the foundation of his theology. (See The Creation Basis for Morality.)

Returning to the Archbishop’s views on education, I recently pointed out on this site that there is no support in the English National Curriculum (or those of Wales or Northern Ireland) for banning creation from the school science laboratory. (See Error in the UK classroom and “Wilful Ignorance” of the English National Curriculum.) Since the Church of England (and its sister church, the Anglican Church in Wales) are sponsors of many Voluntary-Aided2 state schools, they should be giving a clear lead on good science teaching and sound biblical doctrine.

It must be acknowledged that many Anglican churches teach the Bible as God’s authoritative Word. Indeed, I was saved in an Anglican church where the gospel was faithfully preached. But many others, including their current head, Dr. Williams, left biblical truth behind a long time ago.
Notes

   1. Technically, the Queen of England is the head of the Church of England. Return to text.
   2. Voluntary-Aided schools are 85% funded by the UK Government, Welsh Assembly Government or Scottish Executive, and 15% funded by a religious group (Anglican, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim). In England and Wales, they still have to conform to the requirements of the National Curriculum. Return to text.

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Introduction to Flood Geology
Wayne Spencer

This article is meant to be a brief introduction to what has become a huge subject--Flood Geology.   What is Flood geology?  It is an approach to Geology that acknowledges the inerrancy of the Bible and seeks to understand Earth’s features in the light of the framework given in the Bible.  The book of Genesis in the Old Testament speaks of a global Flood in the time of Noah that was a judgement on the individuals in the preflood world.  The Bible describes the event as being a little over a year in terms of the time Noah, his family, and the animals were in the Ark.  I believe this Flood was a real event that had far-reaching effects on the entire planet.  This global catastrophe would have taken place somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.  I also believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years in age, based on both Scripture and science.

Young age creationists have made great progress in recent years in geological and geophysical research into the details of how the Flood happened.  There are many unanswered questions and there are now a variety of views on key questions about how the Flood relates to Earth’s rocks and fossils.  There is generally good agreement among young-age creationists that there is much evidence for the Flood from sedimentary rock and fossils.  Many detailed objections and challenges to a young age and a world-wide Flood have been raised from the scientific community.  If the young age creationist view of Earth history is correct, and I think it is, then there is much about historical geology that needs to be reevaluated and re-written.  It is not necessary to understand all the details of how the Flood took place in order to have reason to believe the Bible.  But it is necessary to explain some of the details in order be credible witnesses to our generation of the certainty and authority of the word of God.

I hope that what follows will be an encouragement to you in your faith and will give some insight into how a creationist framework can help us understand the Earth without Biblical compromise.  The Bible is historically accurate.  And, though it is not written like a science textbook, the information it provides about nature agrees with what we know about the real world.  God has told us there was a great judgement that we call Noah’s Flood.  It was really God’s Flood and He does not want us to forget it.  The evidence for Noah’s Flood is literally right under our feet, from the ocean floor to the top of Mt. Everest.  We have to learn how to recognize it, but when we do, it is a marvelous testimony to God’s greatness and His holiness.  God did not allow the evil in the world to just continue, he did something about it!  He judged the world once and he says in the New Testament that He will judge the world again when Jesus Christ returns, though that judgement will be by fire rather than water.  So, the story of the Noahic Flood is not something to be dismissed.  It has tremendous consequences for geology.

Following is information explaining geological terminology for those without a lot of scientific background in geology.  I would refer the reader to other sources to get a more complete explanation of the evidence for the Flood.  The following assumes the Flood has occurred as outlined in Genesis.  This gives a framework or outline that can be built upon.  The details must be filled in using careful science.  An area in which there has been great strides in secular geological research in recent years is the subject of Earth impacts.  I wrote my ICC papers “Catastrophic Impact Bombardment Surrounding the Genesis Flood” and “Geophysical Effects of Impacts during the Genesis Flood” to suggest an approach that acknowledges the abundant evidence of impacts on Earth without making certain mistakes made by evolutionary science about impacts.   The issue of Earth impacts has been studied a great deal by the scientific community.  This effort has been motivated mainly by the desire to support the concept that one large impact from space about 65 million years ago caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.  There is also significant research today to identify asteroids that come near Earth and assess the hazards of possible impacts on Earth.  My goal is to explain the evidence for Earth impacts in a young-age Flood geology framework, not to explain extinctions.  In a creationist view of Earth history, the aftermath of the world-wide Flood provides a very good explanation for what happened to the dinosaurs.

Important Concepts from Geology

It is important to understand certain terms from geology.  Sedimentary rock is rock that has formed from some kind of sediment.  In many cases it is mud or sand that has fallen out of water and then hardened to rock.  Sedimentary rock can also form from chemical and biological processes.  Calcium and Carbon Dioxide can combine in water to form solid Calcium Carbonate, so this can produce the rock known as limestone.  Limestone forms under water but is not related to flowing water or water carrying sediment particles.  Igneous rock is basically volcanic in origin.  It does not involve particles falling or precipitating out of water but rather comes out of the Earth, from the mantle of the Earth.  Metamorphic rock refers to a variety of types of rock that has come from altering other rock or minerals in various ways.  Usually great heat and pressure are involved in forming metamorphic rock and metamorphic rock can be very dense.  Marble is a form of metamorphic rock.  There are certain special and very unusual metamorphic minerals that are good indicators of impacts from space because they require extreme pressures in order to form.  Sedimentary rocks provide many powerful evidences for the Flood.

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Page Two

Fossils are essentially only found in Sedimentary rock, but not all sedimentary rock.  Sedimentary rock itself argues for the Flood because the large size of the sedimentary rock layers, the size of large boulders moved by water, and other facts point to a global Flood.  There are a number of sedimentary rock layers that cover large areas of North America and are single contiguous layers covering vast areas.  These suggest a very large scale catastrophe.  Many rock formations, though usually explained by evolutionists in terms of processes seen in the present, can be explained very naturally and effectively in terms of the effects of a global Flood.  The Noahic Flood would lead to the formation of many types of large scale geological phenomena unlike anything forming in the present.  Creationist geologists have documented many formations that strongly suggest this.  Fossils can be good indicators of Flooding as well since they may be sorted, they may be aligned in a consistent direction, and the way fossil bones are found often indicates rapid catastrophic burial.  Most fossils are of marine creatures and fossils of marine creatures are found all over the continents, including at the top of many mountains.

A real world-wide Flood would produce much volcanic and metamorphic rock as well.  There are unresolved questions as yet about the how these rocks relate to the Flood for particular cases.  However, it seems clear that much volcanism would take place during and after Noah’s Flood.  Many creationists also believe that the dust, ash, and gases input into the atmosphere following the Flood by large volcanic eruptions would affect climate for years and cause a post-flood ice age.  A post-flood ice age appears to explain effectively the evidence for glaciers in North America, Antarctica, etc. within a young age time frame.  Michael Oard, a meteorologist and ICR graduate, has done some excellent research on the idea of a post-flood ice age.  The evolutionary approach to Earth history says that there have been many ice ages through history.  There is now evidence that the facts used to argue for multiple ice ages can be explained by submarine landslides and debris flows.  This means that underwater debris flows during a global Flood could form sedimentary layers that could be mistaken as glacier or ice age related.

Noah’s Flood would have been a dramatic violent event accompanied and followed  by many different types of catastrophic regional events.  There would be tsunami waves that would devastate coastlines, these are formed from earthquakes and Earth movements on the sea floor for instance.  Though it is not completely clear, there may be indications in Genesis that there was one continent and one contiguous ocean prior to the Flood.  One approach to Flood geology, known as Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, proposes that the large supercontinent began breaking up at the beginning of the Flood and continued during the early stages of the Flood for some period of weeks to months.  Another approach some creationists take is to say that the supercontinent broke up after the Flood.  This approach could have advantages for explaining how living things could spread out across the Earth after the Flood.  But, the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics model has some very solid research behind it from paleontology (study of fossils), geomagnetism (Earth’s magnetic field and its history of changes), and geophysics (from computer models of the Earth’s interior).  I lean toward the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics model for the Flood.  It is not certain but it is the best model available in my opinion.  Today there are several competing models among creationist geologists for explaining how the Flood took place.  This is an exciting area of ongoing research.  I think the primary motivation of this research should be to correct modern science on issues of origins, not to “prove” the Bible.  Still, there are many exciting confirmations of the Biblical view of history in today’s Flood Geology.

An interesting question for creationist geology has always been where did the water come from for the 40 days and nights of rain mentioned in Genesis.  Evolutionist Earth scientists will eagerly point out that there is not enough water in the entire atmosphere today to make rain able to continue for that long.  The traditional answer to this has been the idea of a “vapor canopy” in the preflood Earth.  This would be a layer of the atmosphere with a large amount of dissolved water vapor.  This would not be clouds, so it would be transparent, though some creationists have incorrectly described it as clouds.  The Institute for Creation Research in California has been researching the atmospheric physics of vapor canopies.  Thus far, the idea has not been ruled out but one conclusion seems clear, that any vapor canopy could not contain enough water to provide 40 days of rain.  If that much water were present in the canopy it would produce a powerful greenhouse effect that would make Earth completely uninhabitable at the surface.  But, a thinner canopy with less water could exist in a stable manner between Creation and the Flood and would aid in providing a healthy near-tropical climate all over the world before the Flood.  A thin canopy then would not explain the rains but would shield from cosmic rays and would help explain why there is fossil evidence of tropical plants in areas now described as arctic, such as in Antarctica.  In the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics model, vast amounts of molten magma on the ocean floor would vaporize large amounts of water, which would cause rains.  Another possible source of rain water is impacts from space into the ocean.  It seems clear that some type of geological process must have put large quantities of water into the atmosphere that led to the rains.  These models of the Flood are meant mainly to help understand the natural effects of the Flood and its implications for geology.  They are not intended to explain away or deny the supernatural.  There must have been some supernatural intervention by God in Noah’s Flood in some way in order for it to be a divine judgement.

Some creationists today believe there was no vapor canopy in the preflood Earth.  Dr. Walter Brown, a retired Air Force Engineer and MIT graduate, is an example.  He has an interesting model of the Flood known as the Hydroplate Theory.  His model says there was a layer of liquid water under the crust of the Earth, that was essentially global in the preflood Earth.  Stress and pressure caused it to break out during the Flood through Huge linear fractures in the crust that now form the mid-ocean ridges.  This water under the crust then ejected out in giant eruptions of superheated steam.  He suggests this is what the Bible refers to as the “fountains of the great deep.”  In Browns model, the separation of the continents began during the early part of the Flood, but most of the separation took place after the Flood.

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Page Three

The Geologic Column

A major controversy between creationist geologists today is over the question of the meaning of the standard geologic time table known as the Geologic Column.  This chart breaks up the evolutionist view of Earth history into various time periods.  How it has been arrived at is also controversial, but it comes from correlating rocks and fossils from one location to another across the Earth.  Rocks are classified or identified as representing one of these time periods based on the type of fossils found in them.  Certain fossils called index fossils are used by geologists to identify these rock classifications.  If all the layers shown in this geologic chart were present in one place it would be a very thick section of rock.  A creationist who goes by a pseudo name of John Woodmorappe has studied the geologic column and compared it to what is actually present in Earth’s rock layers.  He found there are actually a few locations, very few, on Earth where all the layers are in one place in the order shown in the chart.  However, this is an extreme exception.  Over most of the Earth, many of the layers are missing.  There are some cases where the layers may be out of order.  One unresolved question is how much order is present in the fossils.  How much are they really in the order given by the Geologic Column?  Creationists have documented examples of fossils in the wrong strata.  This means that they do not fit the sequence of events given by evolution theory due the type of rock they are found in and the assumed ages for that rock.  A world-wide Flood, however, would produce various sorts of order and disorder in the rocks and fossils.  The rock and fossil record in the real world is much like what one would expect from a global Flood.

There are several different views today among creationist geologists about the significance of the Geologic Column.  It is important to note that fossils begin in Cambrian rock, below Cambrian there are no fossils (except for the boundary of the Cambrian in some cases).  Traditionally this Precambrian/Cambrian boundary was considered the line marking the onset of the Flood, where organisms on the ocean floor began to be buried.  Today, it is now realized that the picture is really quite complicated and so the preflood/Flood boundary as well as the Flood/post-flood boundary are both difficult to determine.  In a given location the boundaries may be determinable but there are difficulties in correlating rock layers in locations widely separated from each other, such as across continents.  So, there have been different views of how to interpret the Geologic Column from a creation point of view, even among well qualified creationist geologists.  Some would say that the Mesozoic strata, known for dinosaur fossils, coal, and plant fossils represents the late stages of the Flood year.  Others would put the Mesozoic after the Flood.  Today a number of creationist scientists suspect the Flood/post-Flood boundary is later in the rock record, such as near the top of the Cenozoic or possibly in the Pliestocene.  This view would mean that more geological structures were formed during the Flood and less was formed after the Flood.  Creationists are finding that a better way to understand Earth’s rock layers may be in terms of events (Flood and post-flood) rather than with any kind of time scale chart.

Following are some definitions that may help the reader understand the creationary literature on geology.  I would be glad to correspond with anyone personally if I can help answer any questions.

Tectonic - Refers to some kind of movement of Earth's crust, uplift, lateral motion as in some earthquakes, or some form of warping of rock layers. Often used to refer to movement of the continents or uplift of mountains.

Breccia - Rock made up of fragments welded together by some other material, such as lava for instance. The fragments can be quite large.

Radiometric Dating - A technique for determining the ages of various materials. Carbon Dating measures amounts of Carbon-14 and Carbon-12 and calculates an age based on the rate of conversion of one form of Carbon to the other.  Carbon dating is only used to date objects up to a few tens of thousands of years in age. Other radioactive isotopes are used to date rock.  Potassium/Argon dating is another common technique used to date volcanic rock (basalt).  Radiometric dating techniques cannot be used on sedimentary rock.

Pascal - This is a metric unit for pressure. 1 Pascal is a very small amount of pressure, equivalent to about one one hundred thousandth of an atmosphere. The prefix "mega" means one million times, the "giga" prefix means one billion times the value.  Automobile tires give inflation pressure figures in kilopascals (kpa).

Phase Change - This is usually used to describe a change between solid, liquid, or gas states of matter.  It can also refer to a change in the arrangement of atoms in a mineral.  When the atoms in a mineral rearrange into a different three dimensional arrangement (which can take up more or less space) this is also called a phase change.

Meteor - an object seen streaking across Earth's atmosphere is a meteor. Commonly called a "shooting star."

Meteorite - an object that remains intact after falling through Earth's atmosphere.

Asteroid - Rocky objects in the solar system, most of which are found in the region between Mars and Jupiter. They vary widely in shape, size, and in the nature of their orbits.

Comet - Comets are objects which orbit the Sun in very long elliptical orbits.  Comets are made up of a rocky core probably with large amounts of icy and other very volatile compounds around the core.  They have been described as "dirty snowballs."  Comets are not necessarily very coherent bodies.  They travel very rapidly and would break up or possibly even explode if they passed through Earth's atmosphere.

Carbonaceous Chondrite - a class of meteorite which contains some carbon and some organic compounds. These objects are made up of large amounts of aluminum, magnesium, and certain other metals but they also have a large water content. They contain little iron or nickel but have various materials that are considered "volatile," that is, they boil away easily.

[Soldier4Christ]

Stratification Experiments and Flood Geology


by Wayne Spencer
 

The following is a summary regarding experimental research done by creationist Guy Berthault from France and a colleague, Pierre Julien, an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. The original research related to this work was done in 1989 and 1990. Technical papers have been published related to this work by Guy Berthault, Pierre Julien, and Yongqiang Lan in Geological publications in France and in Civil Engineering Report by Colorado State University. Guy Berthault has presented this information and its significance to the Noahic Flood at the International Conferences on Creationism, in 1994 and 1998. Berthault has also produced popular level video programs explaining the concepts, first in a program called "Evolution: Fact or Belief". Recently in 1999, a new short video has been produced called "Experiments in Stratification". This program is a revision of an earlier program with the same name. This short program is a well produced presentation of the essence of the experiments and Berthault's views on the significance of these experiments for Geology and specifically the discipline of Geology known as stratigraphy. While the validity of the experiments has not been questioned seriously, the question of their significance has been somewhat controversial among leading creationists. The following is my attempt to comment on what Berthault's experiments show and what their significance may be for a creationist view of geology.
 

Guy Berthault and Colorado State University have been working on some hydraulic sedimentation experiments that may have important implications for stratigraphy. The experiments show how sediment deposits in water when there is a current. This work shows one mechanism for how a series of rock strata consisting of multiple horizontal layers can be laid down by water in a short time. Because of the unique way that particles are deposited by this mechanism, multiple layers can form simultaneously, being added to horizontally rather than forming in a vertical sequence as is sometimes taught and assumed in evolutionary geology. This is a mechanism that could apply in a number of locations in the real world, but it is not a universal mechanism. I will try to clarify the scope and limits of this work, to the best of my ability. Creationist geologists, often referred to as Flood Geologists, have identified a number of mechanisms whereby sediment can be rapidly deposited or eroded under catastrophic conditions that would exist during and after a true global Flood. Mechanisms such as this do not prove that the Biblical Flood of Noah occurred, but they show plausible known mechanisms that may have operated during or after the Flood that could have had geological effects we could see today. Catastrophic mechanisms can rapidly accomplish effects that have sometimes have been interpreted as requiring long periods of time.
 

In general, creationist geologists would not disagree with many methods of field geology. More at issue between creationists and evolutionists is the way geology is taught and the assumptions of historical geology, which addresses the origin of geological features on Earth. It is possible evolutionary bias could cause field geologists to neglect certain alternatives that would fit a catastrophic Flood interpretation, just because they have not been trained to look at the facts another way. The following research does call into question some assumptions related to the geologic column, at least the way it is often taught in introductory secondary and post-secondary geology courses. We must guard against being overly "married" to traditional accepted ideas, and against overly applying a new idea. The issue revolves around how valid the following two accepted principles or assumptions of stratigraphy are.

1) The Principle of Superposition - In a sequence of strata consisting of several layers, the lower layers were deposited first (in horizontal layers) and moving up, each layer is younger than the layer beneath it.
 

2) The Principle of Continuity - That within each layer that is of the same type of material and which makes a contiguous layer, all the material within each layer is of the same age. (This does not mean precisely the same age. The age spanned within the thickness of the layer is assumed to be much less than the age spanned across the layers of the whole sequence.) I will try to show this below with dots and "o" characters representing different sizes of particles in a sequence of strata. t1, t2, t3, and t4 represent a time sequence. The dots and o's represent particles of varying size in a sequence of sorted layers.
 
 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::                        t5      youngest

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO              t4 (largest particles)

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo          t3 (larger particles)

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::                       t2 (small particles)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO              t1      oldest



cont'd page two

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Two

When sediment is deposited in STILL water, one horizontal layer and then the next, it can give this kind of pattern in the rock strata, with the bottom layer being the first to form and the top being the last. This does apply in some locations. But there seems to be a problem in the standard approach of evolutionary geology that this model of sedimentation has been over applied to too many locations. In Flood geology, catastrophic processes would produce circumstances in which powerful water currents would exist. Indeed even the daily tides can produce significant currents along the margins of the continents, not to mention many flood-related processes associated with volcanism, earthquakes, impacts from space, etc. The Berthault experiments show that when there is one layer of one type of particles separated from a different layer under it, that does not necessarily mean they formed one after the other in time. They can actually all form at the same time, in a horizontal progression rather than a vertical progression.
 

This is in accordance with an important principle of stratigraphy known as Walther's Law (or the law of correlation of facies). This law describes how sedimentary rock units that formed beside each other horizontally end up superposed on top of each other. This occurs not because they are somehow moved or turned over, but because multiple horizontal layers may form simultaneously. This law, then, describes a relationship between the horizontal and vertical variations in sedimentary materials. Geologists routinely apply this law on small scale phenomena, such as stream deposits. It could apply in some larger scale phenomena where evolutionary assumptions tend to prevent its application. In encountering rock strata classified as different geological periods, such as Jurassic and Cretaceous for example, evolutionary geologists would not think of applying Walther's Law and considering the whole sequence being related and having formed in a short time. But, large scale high energy phenomena could deposit according to Walther's Law as well. A global Flood could provide conditions where this could take place. Thus, Berthault's work has important implications for sedimentary geology. Not because the deposition process he studied is unknown to geologists but because it can be applied on a larger scale than is usually assumed.
 

Berthault's research is not guesswork but is shown in flume experiments in which a current is setup and the particulate mixture is made up of various sizes of sand grains. The sediment is mixed and then put into the water flow in the flume, which is a special channel with machinery that can recirculate both the water and the sediment. The engineering laboratory at Colorado State University did the large scale flume experiments, other experiments have been done in France and most of the technical papers on it were presented to French geological societies, with the exception of some creationist conferences. Most of the experiments of Berthault and Julien seem to include sand particles ranging from 0.11 mm to 1.90 mm. The flow velocity of the water ranged from about 26 to 52 cm/sec. On the other hand, some of their experiments were at higher flow velocities (such as 3 m/sec), allowing the mechanism to be applied at the Grand Canyon. There were a number of different types of sand particles studied. Some were coal particles, some limestone, some angular, some rounded, some light, and some dark. Particle mixtures for the flume experiments were made by taking an equal weight of material from two of the various types of particles. Some experiments were done by pouring the mixture through air, some through standing water. Some mixtures segregated into separate layers and some did not.
 

Three possibilities in the segregation of particles:
 

1) No segregation - This means the particles are randomly mixed, not in separate layers.
 

2) Fine particles can deposit on top of course (larger) particles
 

In this case, you have particles of about the same size, but different density. The higher density particles will sink first.
 

3) Course particles can deposit on top of fine particles
 

This occurs in mixtures of particles of different sizes and densities. It also occurs in underwater turbidity deposits and debri flows, where particles are suspended in water currents and then deposited.
 
 

The Moving Water Experiments

There is an important relationship between the water flow velocity, the size of the particles, and whether the particles will be picked up by the current (erosion) or deposited by the current (deposition). For a certain particle size there is a flow velocity that will begin to erode or suspend the particles of that size in the water, rather than depositing them on the bottom. In reading about the Berthault experiments, it is easy to misunderstand the experiment and think that they are in the wrong velocity region for what they are trying to simulate, so their conclusions are not valid. However, it is important to understand how the experiment is done. The flume is several inches deep. The flow velocity is set just fast enough to suspend and carry the particles, so it is just barely in the velocity range for erosion. But then a flat object, called a gate, is introduced at a certain point in the flume to obstruct the flow. What this does is that the lower part of the water, nearer to the bottom, moves slower than the water near the surface. So, the flow velocity in the bottom half is slow enough to just be in the deposition range, so the particles sink to the bottom. Thus the gate allows them to trigger when and where deposition will take place. This is all a normal experimental procedure. To apply the mechanism for real rocks, one must determine from the site some information about the particle sizes, densities, and what the water velocity would have been when the sediment was laid down.
 

Here's the important thing. The experiments show that the particles are sorted by the moving water so that the smaller particles deposit first (less bouyancy) and the larger particles are essentially carried along by the current longer, so that the larger particles roll over the smaller ones and this makes the fine particles deposit below the larger particles. But, what looks like horizontal layers when its all over are not of the same age. All the "layers" form simultaneously, in the direction of the current. This is known to occur in floods and observed geological events, especially around coastlines or beaches apparently. It appears to have occurred at the Grand Canyon on a huge scale, and it is consistent with principles of hydrology in experiment. The process also occurs in deep water deposition processes such as turbidites and debri flows. This is very significant because many formations can be explained as underwater turbidity deposits. Below I will try to show a time sequence of how this works.
 

OOOOO                                    t1                    Current direction >>>

ooooooooo                               t1

::::::::::::::::::::::                             t1
 

OOOOOOOOO                       t2

ooooooooooooooooo            t2

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::            t2

(older) > (younger)
 

This means that the portion of the sequence that is really of the SAME AGE would be something like this.
 

OO

   oooo

        :::::::cont'd on page three

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Three

To form multiple layers, all that is necessary is changes in current velocity. A change in the current velocity was shown in the experiments to cause multiple sets to form simultaneously. But in this mechanism the horizontal layers are always arranged such that the material with the smaller sized particles is on the bottom.
 

Implications

One of the interesting implications of this is that fossils on the bottom are not necessarily older. In my simple illustrations above, fossils deposited farther left are older and fossils farther to the right were deposited more recently, regardless of whether they are on top or bottom.
 

Now, these results are really undisputable. You can see it all happen in Berthault's videos, which show the flume experiments. The question is how broadly applicable is this to real sedimentary rocks. Berthault makes the following argument. In the deposition of strata according to processes we can see today, which would be a more broadly applicable assumption? 1) That deposition takes place in still water or 2) that it takes place in moving water. Moving water would be more typical of real observed processes. Yet, the Principles of Superposition and of Continuity mentioned above seem to assume still water. Therefore these two principles are unrealistic and called into question.
 

Another implication of this work is that if a whole series of layers can form simultaneously, then the strata could form quickly if you have a catastrophic event of the right kind. These experiments also showed fine laminations in the deposited sediments. It seems that sedimentary layers form in a manner completely surprising, completely different than what you might naturally think, just looking at a sequence of horizontal layers on top of each other.
 

This kind of research needs to be considered in evaluating the significance of the geologic column. The geologic column was based on observations of similar strata in different locations, based on the type of rock. But considering only correlations of rock types, it was only viewed as a relative chronology, not an absolute one. And, at that time, many geologists were apparently creationists who believed in a global Flood, or at least some were. Then, fossils and old-age assumptions were factored in so that the geologic column could be made an "absolute chronology." It is primarily the second idea that it is an absolute chronology which is questioned by creationists. However, the above experiments and other issues may imply that the geologic column may not even be valid as a relative chronology, at least not in a way that applies the same all over the world. If sedimentary rock layers have formed by Berthault's mechanism, then they do not show evidence of macroevolution (large changes from molecules to man) over long periods of time, but are simply the result of what water can do in sorting and transporting particles. If fossils in the sediment are laid down in a horizontal way (left to right in the illustrations above) rather than from the bottom up over long times, then the placement of the fossils has nothing to do with changes in living things over time as macroevolution implies. But how common are fossils in sedimentary rocks that this mechanism could apply to? Berthault does not comment at great length on how deposition of fossils relate to this experimental research. The placement of fossils may tell us more about how living things were buried, than where or how they lived.
 

This tends to call into question some evolutionary assumptions in geology and confirm a young-age Flood view of geology, though there are unanswered questions to be pursued still in "Flood Geology." Sometimes geologists, in looking at a sequence of finely laminated sedimentary rock layers, count how many layers and assuming 1 or 2 layers (for instance) form per year, multiply to obtain the total age of the whole layer (facies). Sometimes this approach is not applicable and a mechanism like in Berthault's experiments may apply. This would mean the sequence could form quickly in a manner that indicates hydrologic processes, such as flooding or tides or turbidity flows under water, rather than slow build up over long periods of time.
 

Berthault uses his research on sedimentation to attack the very basis of the evolutionary Geologic Column. There are locations in the world where the entire sequence represented by the Geologic Column does exist. But a location that allowed you to drill straight down in the rock and obtain a core sample that would contain all the layers would be a very rare exception. Often various layers are missing from the sequence, sometimes enough to represent a long period of time, by an evolutionary viewpoint. The Geologic Column is based on some questionable assumptions about fossils and rock layers and how rocks can be correlated in age from place to place. It possible to correlate rock strata from one location to another to a certain degree. But, whether it is possible to say that a Triassic rock on one continent is of the same age as a Triassic rock on another continent thousands of miles away is another question. These issues are matters creationist geologists continue to research.
 

What are the conditions that would stop or prevent Berthault's sediment segregation mechanism?

    * Sufficient turbulence in the water disrupts the effect. But, varying smooth water flow tends to enhance it. In fact, cross-currents tend to enhance it as well.

    * If the mixture were of particles of approximately the same size then the mechanism would not work. It may not work if there were a large number of different particle sizes, but this was not studied in Berthault's or Julien's experiments. Their mixtures had only two particle sizes.

    * Their experiments described in detail in the technical creationist publications use particles geologists refer to as "fine sand" to "sand" sized. How the mechanism applies for smaller "silt" and "clay" sized particles is not clear. Berthault has done some experiments with smaller particles but has not written as much on this apparently. It appears to me that the mechanism should work down to about particle diameters of 0.2 mm if you have the correct water velocities.

       

cont'd on page four

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Four

Conclusions

Note that Berthault and Julien are not the first to do experiments of this nature and this mechanism was not totally unknown prior to Berthault's experiments. The research of Berthault and Julien does clarify the physical mechanism for this kind of segregation of particles. The implications of hydrologic processes like this are often not adequately incorporated in the way geology is taught. Real physical principles of hydrology do not always seem to bear out some ideas taught to beginning geology and earth science students. I seriously doubt that this type of mechanism is given adequate consideration even by geologists in the field, in some cases. Geologists would routinely apply Walther's Law for smaller scale phenomena such as a stream deposit or small valley. But on larger scales it is not considered, though there is no reason the physical mechanism in Berthault and Julien's experiments could not be upscaled to higher water velocities and sediment particle sizes. This type of mechanism might apply more often in real rocks than might be expected by an evolutionary geologist, if a global Flood actually happened. In such a Flood, there would be many locations where this mechanism could apply, though it would not apply for all sedimentary rocks. The Biblical Noahic Flood would have been a complex event and many different types of erosion and sedimentary processes would have been involved during and after the Flood proper.

Berthault and Julien's mechanism would not apply where there were highly turbulent environments. It may not apply for some mixtures of small silt or clay sized particles. Most importantly, some mixes of sediment particles could not sort by this mechanism because the mechanism depends on large particles being able to roll over small ones and allow the small ones to fall down in the spaces between the larger particles. In still water and air, somehow the particles seem to sort themselves in a similar manner just before they come to rest.

Still, the mechanism has been applied successfully at the Grand Canyon by Steve Austin, geologist at the Institute for Creation Research. It has also been applied in Colorado, at a location known as Bijou Creek, where there are extensive laminated sand deposits. Berthault's experiments are actually broader than what has been explained above. He also showed that some sediment mixtures laminate even falling through air and sometimes in still water, but it is not clear how much this applies to real rock layers. The mechanism described above for moving water Berthault refers to as the "mechanism of non-horizontal layers." This mechanism can apply in either transgressive environments (such as a rising tide) or regressive environments (a falling tide, for instance). Berthault also did experiments in which he started by grinding up a sedimentary rock into particles, mixed them, then redeposited them and reformed a laminated deposit similar to the original rock's layers. And, this only required a brief period of time. Some of Berthault's experiments on lamination also were done with finer silt and clay particles, which again showed lamination in both water and air. Papers on this aspect of Berthault's work were apparently published only in the French journals (see Austin below, page 54, ref. 68). Also, Berthault and Julien's experiments also show that layers of sediment can form on slopes of significant angles. This means that sediment layers do not have to form on a horizontal surface. Geology students are always taught in introductory Earth Science and geology that sedimentary rock layers always started horizontal and then were tilted after they formed, to form sloped strata as we see today. It seems this is not always the case.

It may be that Berthault somewhat overstates the applicability of this work to real rocks in the field in some respects. The main reason I say this is that in real sedimentary rocks, the type of mix of particles may not be conducive to this mechanism.  Also, very turbulent conditions would definitely take place in Noah's Flood, and this would prevent this mechanism in many cases. On the other hand, where there would be smoother water currents, but with changing current directions and flow velocities, it would be very conducive to the "mechanism of non-horizontal layers." I believe this work does have a lot of applicability in the real world and needs to be considered seriously by geologists. This mechanism is in fact applied by geologists, but on limited scales. The significance of Berthault's research, it seems to me, is not that it refutes the geologic column (it does shoot certain holes in it) or that it explains all sedimentary rock. Its significance is that the mechanism is better understood thanks to Berthault and Julien and the mechanism can be applied on larger scales than most evolutionary geologists consider. This research shows that principles of hydrology are very applicable to interpreting sedimentary rock in a young-earth Flood geology context. Laminated horizontal layers do not require long periods of time to form on small scales and they need not on large scales under the right conditions. Evolutionary geologists believe that present small scale slow processes, scaled over long periods of time, can explain the large scale formations of the Earth. But instead of scaling up the time to explain Earth's features, it is more physically realistic to upscale the energy and catastrophic nature of the events to explain Earth's features. Geologists do apply catastrophic approaches today on scales that are logical extrapolations of what we see today. But, many features on Earth's surface point to processes of the past that were of a much larger scale than is observed in the present. Evolutionist geologists propose many separate catastrophic events over long periods of time to explain Earth's geology. But one global tectonic and sedimentary event such as the Flood would spawn many other smaller catastrophes. These catastrophes still threaten us even today!

Many other topics in geology have been researched by creationist geologists and related to the possible processes of a global Flood. There is often more than one way to interpret a given set of facts, especially when dealing with scientific origins. There are also multiple possible approaches to some geological problems that creationists are researching. But, I believe qualified creationist geologists have done much valuable research that shows how many features of the Earth under our feet can be explained by a global Flood, just as is described in the book of Genesis.

[Soldier4Christ]

Kansas Fossils and a Great Flood
by

Wayne Spencer

[For images see below]

Though the creationist view of earth history is not usually taught in public schools, this approach to geology has convinced many scientists and others that there are problems with the evolution-based time scale known as the Geologic Column. Creationists have documented evidence of processes in the past which agree very well with the belief that there was a real world-wide Flood in the past that has had profound and far-reaching effects on the earth. This approach to geology, known as catastrophism, holds that many of the earth's features are the result of high energy processes related to flooding and other tectonic activity in the earth. The standard approach to geology has said that the earth's features are the result of the same processes seen today but operating slowly over vast periods of time.

Scientists, whether creationists or evolutionists, interpret the facts in terms of their own beliefs. The same rocks and fossils can be interpreted from either a creationist viewpoint or an evolutionist viewpoint. Nothing can be proven about the past by the scientific method since no scientists were present many years ago to record data or make a live action movie of what was happening. The scientific method requires that one be able to repeat the observations. This is of course impossible in matters of origins, since you deal with events that happened only once, in the past.

The geologic column divides 600 million years of time into the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Eras. The Mesozoic Era covers from 65 million to 230 million years ago, according to the evolutionary time scale. The Mesozoic Era is known as the age of the dinosaurs and is subdivided into the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods. These are all periods of time in which the evolution of living things is believed to have been taking place. It is worth noting that in much of Kansas both the Triassic and Jurassic periods are missing. These two periods would cover about 90 million years. The Precambrian layer contains almost no fossils and is igneous and metamorphic rock. The layers overlying it, however, are sedimentary rock, which usually forms from material that falls out of water. Sedimentary rock can be considered to be essentially various forms of mud that turns to rock. According to the geologic column the older layers are on the bottom, near the Precambrian and the less old layers are nearer to the surface. Scientists identify which period corresponds to a rock primarily by which fossils are found in them. Ages are assigned to the rocks according to which geological period they correspond to. Evolution is assumed in this process.
 

Creationist geologists are researching other ways of interpreting the rock layers and their fossils in terms of the earth being much younger, about 7-10,000 years. When layers of the geological column are missing in the rock layers, it is assumed that either they were present at one time but were eroded away, or were never deposited. Erosion of some layers away seems to have happened in some cases but in some areas the line between two such layers is very smooth and gives no evidence of there being soil or erosion or life in between the layers. So much "missing" time ought to leave some clues of its existence. Creationists suggest that in many cases these areas are explained better by all the sedimentary layers being deposited continuously in a short time during a great Flood. Other processes, such as tides and earth movements during the Flood would add some complicating factors to this. These complicating processes would cause multiple layers of various materials.

The fact that most of the planet is covered predominately with sedimentary rock is consistent with the earth being covered with water. Even the tops of many mountains are made of sedi-mentary rock. This great Flood would require a minimum of several weeks to cover the earth depending on the extent of the tectonic processes involved. Then the earth would have been covered or partially covered for most of a year.

Such a great catastrophe would certainly be accompanied by intense volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Probably great climate changes would occur until the earth came back to some sort of equilibrium. It is likely that there was one "ice age" period after the Flood, which was the result of having a warm ocean coupled with a cold climate right after the Flood.

Flooding processes on a global scale can explain both the order of the fossils in the rock layers, as well as the randomness of how fossils are found. Catastrophic flooding can transport carcasses, trees, and other material large distances and mix together things that are not normally found together. Catastrophic volcanic and flooding processes were demonstrated in the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1980 and have been studied extensively by creationist geologists. Creationist research suggests that a number of things believed to form slowly can actually form very rapidly under catastrophic conditions.
 

cont'd on page two