Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Nine

The symmetry of the crater distribution on Venus and asymmetry of the craters on other inner
solar system objects can be explained quite naturally if the solar system is young and a
catastrophic event occurred. Slow gradual cratering over thousands of years from a variety of
unrelated objects would tend to produce a more random crater distribution on surfaces. But a
catastrophic event in the solar system that caused many craters in a short time could produce a
more asymmetrical pattern. If the volcanism on Venus occurred after the catastrophe, then the
craters now found on Venus may be unrelated to the catastrophic bombardment itself. The
uniform cratering on Venus may be the type of random pattern that would be expected from
present meteoritic phenomena, whereas the cratering on our Moon, Mars, Mercury and elsewhere
may have come from a dramatic event of some kind in the history of the solar system.
Mars is worthy of special mention regarding its cratering and volcanism. Table 2 does not show
an obvious trend in the crater distribution for Mars. However there is a great dichotomy between
Mars’ Northern and Southern Hemispheres. There is a region known as the northern lowlands
which has been resurfaced by volcanism. This region is an approximately circular region of about
7,700 Km diameter centered at 50 degrees North latitude. The Southern hemisphere has more
ancient cratered terrain and is higher in elevation. One of the largest impact sites known on
Mars, known as Hellas, is located in the Southern hemisphere antipodal to the massive volcano
Alba Patera, which is one of a group of large volcanoes in the Northern hemisphere on a feature
known as Tharsis. Tharsis is a large bulge encompassing a huge area of Mars’ surface.
Recently, researchers have suggested interesting possibilities for explaining these features on
Mars. It is possible similar processes could be related to some volcanism in Earth’s past. A new
theory known as Antipodal Volcanism, suggests that the Hellas impact (and possibly other
impacts) produced the Tharsis bulge and caused volcanism on the opposite side of the planet as
15
result of refraction and reflection of the shock waves from a large impact [7]. It has also been
suggested that the large northern lowland region of Mars is actually a giant impact basin or a
group of large overlapping impacts that stimulated great volcanic events [40, p. 213-14, 228].
These considerations on Mars imply that some volcanic processes on Earth could be related to
massive impacts, if there were large impacts approximately antipodal to the volcanic activity.
What kind of event in the solar system could have caused a bombardment event at the time of
the Noahic Flood? Froede and DeYoung [12] have suggested that a planet similar to the other
terrestrial planets existed in the region between Mars and Jupiter. This former planet exploded
by an unknown process, producing many fragments that led to meteoritic impacts on the planets.
In this scenario, the asteroids would have originated from the catastrophic disruption of this
planet. Though this has been suggested by a number of scientists, it is an idea that is not
considered seriously today by astronomers, mainly because of what is known of the composition
of the asteroids across the asteroid belt. The asteroids do have varied orbital and physical
characteristics that could suggest a catastrophic origin. They have obviously undergone many
collisions. On the other hand, there are many asteroids in fairly regular orbits, not highly elliptical
or inclined. Furthermore, several of the larger asteroids are nearly spherical, including the
largest, Ceres [43, p. 226]. The rotation characteristics of asteroids greater than about 150 Km
diameter do not fit the relationship expected of collision fragments [39, p. 521]. All this is simply
to say that the asteroids may not all have a single common origin and a destroyed planet in my
opinion is an inadequate explanation for the characteristics of the asteroids.
The density of the asteroids and the type of minerals that predominate in the different regions of
the asteroid belt do not agree well with the idea of a disrupted planet. In the disruption of such
a planet there would be no natural process that would produce a sorting of the objects by density
or mineral content. The composition of the planet would not make any difference in this. Gravity
does not sort collision fragments by density, though it could sort by size. But, a sorting by
density, not size, exists among the asteroids. There are currently 14 recognized composition
classes of asteroids. These many types of objects are categorized into three superclasses as
igneous, metamorphic, and carbonaceous (carbonaceous are called “primitive” in the scientific
literature). The best way to describe the difference between these superclasses is in density and
volatile content. Carbonaceous Chondrite objects are in the primitive category, having some
relatively low boiling point material. Other objects made up mainly of iron and nickel would be
considered igneous. Some classes of asteroids are of unknown composition and are only
distinguished by their spectral characteristics. The asteroids follow a density pattern generally
similar to that followed by the planets, the inner planets have fewer volatile compounds where the
temperature is greater near the Sun and the outer planets (and their moons) have much higher
volatile content where the temperature is lower. This may exist for the created purpose of stability
in composition in the different regions of the solar system. Figure 1, adapted from R. P. Binzel,
et. al. [5, p. 91], illustrates this relationship, showing percent abundance as a function of distance
from the Sun. Igneous asteroids are of higher density than carbonaceous asteroids.
This distribution of the asteroids is better understood as a created relationship, not as a result of
a planet disruption. The evolutionary explanation of the density and composition of the planets
and the asteroids relates to condensation from the proto solar nebula depending on the
temperature as a function of distance from the Sun. The planets were apparently created with
this pattern, it seems logical that the asteroids could be created with the same pattern. On the
other hand, asteroids have obviously undergone many collisions. Rather than supposing the
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cont'd on page ten

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Ten

Figure 1 Adapted from Binzel, et. al. Asteroids are
roughly sorted by density.
destruction of a planet in the asteroid
region, it seems more reasonable that the
larger objects are created objects and
some of the smaller asteroids may be
fragments from collisions. This is also
reasonable in the light of the rotation
characteristics of the asteroids [39]. This
argues against the comments of Froede
and DeYoung [12] regarding the source of
the objects striking Earth at the time of the
Flood. There is a need to evaluate various
scenarios based on celestial mechanics
considerations. I believe that a solid
debris field passing through the solar
system may be a better explanation. An
object “swarm” like this could also cause
the bombardment to be periodic or
episodic in some way. Such a debris field
may explain cratering in both the outer and
inner regions of the solar system. A debris field passing through the solar system would allow
for the possibility of larger asteroids being created and smaller asteroids being collision
fragments. Creationists should not adopt any one model too quickly, such as a destroyed planet
between Mars and Jupiter, before other possibilities are investigated seriously.
Other possibilities are suggested by recent discoveries. A planet breakup in the inner solar
system does not explain the cratering records of objects in the outer solar system. A major
collision or break up event could also be a possibility in the outer solar system near Neptune
[38]. Small objects such as collision fragments or comets in the Neptune region tend to be
perturbed toward the inner solar system, so objects from the outer solar system could reach
Earth. Recently small objects often described as “snowballs” or “mini-comets” have been
discovered to be bombarding Earth’s atmosphere at a rate of about 20 per minute [35]. They are
vaporized high in Earth’s atmosphere. The source of these objects is not known; even their
existence may be uncertain. Could they represent remnants of some more severe event in the
past?
CONCLUSION
The Alvarez hypothesis that an impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs has generated
much research into Earth impacts. Though erosion and various other geological processes have
altered Earth impact structures, it is now fairly clear how to identify such structures on Earth, at
least in many cases. There is clear evidence from shock minerals and other observations that
impacts have occurred on Earth. However, the hypothesis of extinctions being caused by one
impact is not an acceptable explanation of the dinosaurs from a creation point of view. Rather
than using an impact to explain dinosaur extinction, as creationists we must attempt to explain
Earth impacts in the context of a young Earth and a world-wide Flood. The aftermath of the
Noahic Flood is a very adequate explanation for what happened to the dinosaurs.
17
Though impacts are not mentioned in Scripture in relation to the Flood, this does not rule out the
possibility of such events. Indeed, impacts would seem consistent with God’s judgement.
Allowing for there being impacts during the Flood creates many additional possibilities for
geological mechanisms that can explain Earth’s features. Since impacts exist in Precambrian
strata, impacts could have begun immediately before the Flood and continued during the Flood
year as well as after that. In some cases it is possible that even craters in Precambrian rock
could have actually taken place after the Flood, after erosion removed many layers of Flood
sediments. These considerations lead to the conclusions that a) an impact bombardment event
occurred, possibly beginning immediately before the onset of the Flood, b) volcanism was
occurring at the same time, and c) impacts continued into the postflood period. The number of
known astroblemes and meteorites on Earth are probably not indicators of the number of impacts
that occurred. That must be resolved from other considerations. The best indicator of the number
of impacts on Earth would very likely be the cratering record of our Moon. Creationist geologists
must consider the effects of impacts in explaining Earth’s geology.


cont'd on page eleven

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Eleven

REFERENCES
[1] Aldaney, Jeremy, Asteroids and their Connection to the Flood, (letters section)
Proceedings of the 1992 Twin-Cities Creation Conference, Twin-Cities Creation Science
Association, (1992).
[2] Aldaney, Jeremy, Asteroid Hypothesis for Dinosaur Extinction, Creation Research
Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, June 1994, p 11-12.
[3] Alvarez, Luis, W., Alvarez, Walter, Asaro, Frank, Michel, Helen V., Extraterrestrial Cause
for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction, Science, Vol. 208, Number 4448, June 6, 1980,
pp 1095-1108.
[4] Alvarez, Walter and Asaro, Frank, The extinction of the dinosaurs, Understanding
Catastrophe, Janine Bourriau, Editor, 1992, Cambridge University Press.
[5] Binzel, Richard P., Barucci, M. A., and Fulchignoni, Marcello, The Origins of the
Asteroids, Scientific American, October 1991, pp 88-94.
[6] Bohor, Bruce F., Modreski, Peter J., and Foord, Eugene, E., Shocked Quartz in the
Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Clays: Evidence for a Global Distribution, Science,
May 8, 1987, pp 705-9.
[7] Broad, William J., New Theory Would Reconcile Rival Views on Dinosaurs’ Demise,
New York Times, December 27, 1994, pp C1, C10.
[8] Dietz, Robert S., Astroblemes, Scientific American, Vol. 205, No. 2, 1961, pp 50-58.
[9] Dietz, Robert S., Demise of the Dinosaurs: A Mystery Solved, Astronomy, July 1991,
pp 32-37.
[10] Feldman, Vilen I., The Conditions of Shock Metamorphism, Geological Society of
America Special Paper 293: Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution, Editors B.O.
Dressler, R.A.F. Grieve, and V.L. Sharpton, (1994).
[11] Fischer, Michael J., A Giant Meteorite Impact and Rapid Continental Drift, Proceedings
of the Third International Conference on Creationism, Robert E. Walsh, Editor, Creation
18
Science Fellowship, Inc., (1994), pp 185-197.
[12] Froede, Carl R. and DeYoung, Don B., Impact Events within the Young-Earth Flood
Model, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 33, June 1996, pp 23-34.
[13] Ganapathy, R., Brownlee, D. E., and Hodge, P. W., Silicate Spherules from Deep-Sea
Sediments: Confirmation of Extraterrestrial Origin, Science, Vol. 201, Sept. 22, 1978,
pp 1119-1121.
[14] Ganymede Crater Database, http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/research/gc/gchome.html,
Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas. (LPI Home Page URL:
http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov).
[15] Glass, Billy P., Possible correlations between tektite events and climatic changes?,
Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, (1982) pp 251-256.
[16] Glass, B. P. and Wu, Jiquan, Coesite and shocked quartz discovered in the
Australasian and North American microtektite layers, Geology Vol. 21, May 1993, pp
435-438.
[17] Grieve, Richard A. F., Impact Cratering on the Earth, Scientific American, April 1990, pp
66-73.
[18] Grieve, Richard A. F., The record of impact on Earth: Implications for a major
Cretaceous/Tertiary impact event, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190,
1982, pp 27-28.
[19] Grieve, R. A. F., When will enough be enough?, Nature, Vol. 363, June 24, 1993, pp
670-671.
[20] Grieve, R. A. F. and Dence, M. R., The Terrestrial Cratering Record, II. The Crater
Production Rate, Icarus, Vol. 38, 1979, pp 230-242.
[21] Horz, F., Grieve, R., Heiken, G., Spudis, P., & Binder, A., Lunar Surface Processes, Lunar
Sourcebook: A User's Guide to the Moon, (1991), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
England, 118-119.
[22] Lowe, Donald R., and Byerly, Gary R., Early Archean silicate spherules of probable
impact origin, South Africa and Western Australia, Geology, Vol. 14, January 1986, pp
83-86.
[23] Lowe, Donald R., Byerly, Gary R., Asaro, Frank, Kyte, Frank, Geological and
Geochemical Record of 3400-Million-Year-Old Terrestrial Meteorite Impacts, Science,
September 1989, pp 959-962.
[24] Meyerhoff, Arthur A., Lyons, John B., and Officer, Charles B., Chicxulub Structure: A
Volcanic Sequence of Late Cretaceous Age, Geology, January 1994, pp 3-4.
[25] Morell, Virginia, How Lethal was the K-T Impact?, Science, Vol. 261, Sept. 17, 1993, pp
1518-19.
[26] Norton, O. Richard, Rocks from Space: Meteorites and Meteorite Hunters, Mountain
Press Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana, (1994).
[27] Oard, Michael J., Response to Comments on the Asteroid Hypothesis for Dinosaur
Extinction, (letters section) Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, June 1994, p
12.
[28] Oard, Michael J., The Extinction of the Dinosaurs, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal,
Vol. 11, No. 2, 1997, pp 137-154.
[29] Officer, Charles, Victims of Volcanoes, New Scientist, Feb. 20, 1993, pp 34-38.
[30] Officer, Charles B. and Drake, Charles L., Terminal Cretaceous Environmental Events,
Science, Volume 227, No. 4691, March 8, 1985.
19
[31] Parks, William S., The Role of Meteorites in a Creationist Cosmology, Creation
Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 26, March 1990, pp 144-146.
[32] Poag, C. Wylie, Powars, David S., Poppe, Lawrence J., and Mixon, Robert B., Meteoroid
mayhem in Ole Virginny: Source of the North American tektite strewn field, Geology,
vol. 22, August 1994, pp 691-694.
[33] Rampino, Michael R., A non-catastrophist explanation for the iridium anomaly at the
Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, Leon
T. Silver and Peter H. Shultz, Editors, (1982), Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO.
[34] Reed, John K., and Froede, Carl R. Jr., A Biblical Christian Framework for Earth
History Research Part III — Constraining Geologic Models, Creation Research Society
Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 4, March 1997, pp 285, 289-90.
[35] Snelling, A. A., Cosmic Snowballs Bombard the Earth?, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical
Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1997, pp 255-6.
[36] Snelling, Andrew A., and Rush, David E., Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System,
Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1, (1993), pp 2-42.
[37] Spencer, Wayne R., Geophysical Effects of Impacts During the Genesis Flood,
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Robert E. Walsh,
Editor, Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., (1998, this volume).
[38] Spencer, Wayne, R., Revelations in the Solar System, Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol. 19, No.
3, June-August (1997), p 28.
[39] Spencer, Wayne R., The Origin and History of the Solar System, Proceedings of the
Third International Conference on Creationism, Robert E. Walsh, Editor, Creation Science
Fellowship, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, (1994), pp 513-523.
[40] Spudis, Paul D., Multi-ring basins on the terrestrial planets, The Geology of Multi-Ring Impact
Basins: The Moon and Other Planets , Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas,
Cambridge University Press, (1993).
[41] Stofan, Ellen R., The New Face of Venus, Sky and Telescope, August 1993, pp 22-31.
[42] Stoffler, D. and Deutsch, A., et. al., The Formation of the Sudbury Structure, Canada:
Toward a unified impact model, Geological Society of America Special Paper 293,
(1994), pp 303-316.
[43] Taylor, S. R., The Role of Impacts, Solar System Evolution, Lunar and Planetary Institute,
Houston, Texas, Cambridge University Press, (1992), pp 165.
[44] Toon, O. B., Pollack, J. B., and Ackerman, T. P., et. al., Evolution of an impactgenerated
dust cloud and its effects on the atmosphere, Geological Society of America
Special Paper 190, 1982, pp 188-190.
[45] Venus Crater Database, http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/research/vc/vchome.html, Lunar and
Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas (LPI Home Page URL: http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov).
[46] Williams, George E., Acraman: A major impact structure from the Neoproterozoic of
Australia, Geological Society of America Special Paper 293, (1994) pp 209-224.
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cont'd on page twelve

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Twelve

Letter to the editor, CRSQ
Published in Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 3, Dec. 1999, pp 163-165
Earth Impacts, the Geologic Column, and Chicxulub
Some CRSQ readers will be aware of the papers on Earth impacts which I presented at the Fourth
International Conference on Creationism, August 1998 (Spencer, 1998). Following are some comments on
research I have done on the subject of impacts since the publication of these papers. I would like to mention
Earth crater data obtained after the publication deadline of the ICC Proceedings, a minor error in the paper,
and some recent findings relevant to the subject from the scientific literature.
In the ICC Proceedings paper, “Catastrophic Impact Bombardment Surrounding the Genesis Flood”
I presented a table giving data on Earth astroblemes in relation to the Geologic Column. Table 1, page 559
of the Proceedings gives two data sets from Earth crater data compiled by O. Richard Norton, an astronomer
and educator, and Richard Grieve of the Canadian Geological Survey, Canada. The Norton data set was only
50 points, but was recent data from 1994 while the Grieve data was from 1982 and included 88 points. The
50 point data set included good information on the sites and is a set where there is a high confidence of them
being impact sites. The Grieve data set of 1982 was considered a very authoritative list at the time and it has
been quoted and used by many other authors since. The Grieve data from 1982 also included some
information on the sites. Richard Grieve used a ranking system to describe the state of preservation of the
impact structures. After the publication deadline for the ICC papers, I was able to obtain a data set from the
Canadian Geological Survey, including Grieve’s Earth impact site list from 1998. There was no way to get
this data into the Proceedings papers but it was in my presentations at the conference. The 1998 list of Earth
astroblemes included 121 points (points without an assigned age figure were thrown out). This data set has
the advantage of being very up to date but the disadvantage of there being no information about each site.
The crater numbers were totaled in the ICC Proceedings in a manner that contained an error.
Following is a table showing how it was presented for the case of the 1982 data set.
Geologic Column Label Evolutionary Age (Ma) No. of Impacts, Grieve, 1982
Recent < 1 7
Upper Cenozoic 5 - 1 3
Lower Cenozoic 65 - 5 7
Mesozoic 100 -65 3
Upper Paleozoic 300 - 100 15
Lower Paleozoic 600 - 300 12
Precambrian > 600 3
Table 1 Data presented as in ICC 98 Proceedings, italics labels are not correct
The Mesozoic, Upper Paleozoic, Lower Paleozoic, and Precambrian labels are not correct for the age periods
shown in Table 1 (same for the Norton data set, not shown here). The counts of impact sites in each
category are correct for the numerical age ranges shown, but not correct for the Geologic periods shown.
The Lower Paleozoic and Precambrian period counts are not quite correct because Geological societies
21
recently adopted a different boundary age between the Precambrian and Cambrian periods than the figure
used in the Proceedings. This puts the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary at 550 Million years ago rather than
600. Of course, as young earth creationists we do not accept these ages. But the difference does affect the
counts of the astroblemes.
It is important for creationist geologists to look into how Earth impacts are distributed in the
Geologic Column. Though there is not a real consensus on some questions about the Geologic Column and
the Flood among creationists, this kind of data can shed light on the complex events of the Genesis Flood.
The most important point is that impact structures are found in all types of rock and all through the Geologic
Column, from Precambrian up. Such data may be counted and presented in a variety of ways, so there is a
danger of bias coming through in such a table. After recounting the points with the 1998 Grieve data set,
two interesting ways of presenting the numbers follow in Tables 2 and 3.

cont'd on page thirteen

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Thirteen

Geologic Period Evolutionary Age (Ma) Grieve data, 1998,
121 points
Cenozoic 64 - Present 43
Mesozoic 249 - 65 33
Paleozoic 549 - 250 37
Precambrian > 550 8
Table 2 1998 Earth crater data recounted to correctly correspond to Geologic Periods
Some creationists might argue that showing the data this way shows a bias towards the uniformitarian
presuppositions of evolutionary geology. So, I counted the data in another way, breaking down the ages into
12 equal uniformitarian-time periods of 50 million years each. Table 3 shows the data this way from Grieve’s
1998 data set. (The data sets mentioned here are available from Spencer, 1998c.)
22
Evolutionary Age (Ma) Grieve, 1998, 121 pts.
50 - 0 39
100 - 50 16
150 - 100 12
200 - 150 2
250 - 200 7
300 - 250 5
350 - 300 9
400 - 350 6
450 - 400 5
500 - 450 7
550 - 500 4
> 600 4
Table 3 Earth Impacts throughout the Geologic Column, by equal “time” periods.
Table 3 shows that the greatest number of impacts are in recent strata, which are easier to discover
since they are more accessible for study. The accessibility of the various strata is a very important
consideration. A paper by Trefil and Raup (1990), uses statistical analysis to determine whether most Earth
craters have the same age as the rock they are found in. They conclude that this is the case at most impact
sites. This conclusion needs to be reexamined based on young-age assumptions. Small craters are more
likely to be eroded before the rock they are found in is eroded. On the other hand, large craters are likely
to “survive” even if there is significant erosion around the site. A large impact produces a variety of
indicators of impact that may be observed even if the crater rim has eroded away, such as shocked minerals,
breccia and deformed strata, magnetic anomalies, and various circular structures in the subsurface rock.
Trefil and Raup show statistical data on the percentage of the continental surface which has each geological
rock classification available near the surface. Cenozoic and Mesozoic rock are much more common on the
surface of the continents than is Paleozoic rock. So, for example, Cambrian rock is less accessible than
Cretaceous since it is found over a much smaller area near the surface where we can study it easily. This may
imply that the impact structures in the Paleozoic strata were more numerous than the above numbers tend
to show, since those strata are less accessible today. This tends to be consistent with what I proposed in my
ICC papers.
Another item of note was brought to my attention by Thomas Fritzsche, who presented an excellent
paper at the 1998 ICC on the Chicxulub structure, in Yucatan. This structure has been accepted by many
in the scientific community as the impact that led to the global extinction of dinosaurs. Recent seismic
reflection sounding studies of the Chicxulub structure have shed light on an interesting controversy over the
size of the original Chicxulub crater. Estimates of the transient crater diameter have ranged from 180 to 300
23
Km. After the impact, slumping and erosion would reduce the observed diameter from this value. The
original paper by Luis and Walter Alvarez, Frank Asaro and Helen Michel, in 1980, quoted geologist Richard
Grieve as estimating that a 10 Km diameter asteroid would produce a structure 200 Km in diameter. The
new seismic data from Chicxulub have revealed that the transient crater diameter was more like 100 Km, and
that the shock waves of the impact produced a fault structure that reached all the way into the upper mantle.
There is a prominent scarp structure around the Chicxulub impact site at about 195 Km diameter. This was
thought previously to be the main crater rim, but based on the new seismic studies the scarp must be
considered a ring. This means that the Chicxulub structure is now viewed as a two or three ringed complex
crater. Multi-ringed craters can have the rings either outside or inside the main crater rim. Not many impact
sites on Earth have been proposed to be Multi-ringed craters. This may the best evidence of such a structure
to date on Earth, though they are common on our Moon and Mars. On Earth, where erosion, tectonics, and
sedimentation have altered crater structures, it can be very difficult to determine the main crater rim diameter.
Hence the controversy over the size of Chicxulub. What is significant to creationists in this is that this new
data on Chicxulub significantly reduces the energy of the “dinosaur killer” impact. My ICC papers argue that
one large impact, even a large one such as the one at Yucatan, could not cause global extinctions of the
dinosaurs (Spencer, 1998a). The environmental effects of such an event are not long-lived enough (Spencer,
1998b), and from an evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record, the extinctions took too long to associate
them with one impact. The smaller size of the Yucatan impact makes the single-impact extinction hypothesis
even less plausible.
Recently published papers by creationists (Faulkner 1999; Froede, 1999; Steele, 1999) underscore
that impacts from space are an important piece of the puzzle in a Biblical and scientific understanding of Earth
history and the Flood. The events of the post-Flood period, in my opinion, are a very adequate explanation
of the extinction of the dinosaurs. It is possible to incorporate a significant number of impacts in our models
of Noah’s Flood.
Alvarez, Luis; Alvarez, Walter; Asaro, Frank; Michel, Helen; (June 6, 1980), Extraterrestrial cause for the
Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction, Science, Vol. 208, No. 4448, pp 1095-1108.
Faulkner, Danny, (1999), A biblically based cratering theory, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol.
13, No. 1, pp 100 - 104.
Fritzsche, Thomas, (1998), The Impact at the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary, In Walsh, R E. (editor),
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions,
Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 553-566.
Froede, Carl R. Jr., and Williams, Emmett L., June 1999, The Wetumpka Impact Crater, Elmore County,
Alabama: An Interpretation Within the Young-Earth Flood Model, Creation Research Society Quarterly,
36:1, pp 32-37.
Melosh, H. J., (Dec. 4, 1997), Muti-ringed revelation, Nature Vol. 390, pp 439-440.
Morgan, Jo; Warner, Mike, et. al., (Dec. 4, 1997), Size and morphology of the Chicxulub impact crater,
Nature Vol. 390, pp 472-476.
24
Spencer, Wayne R., 1998a, Catastrophic impact bombardment surrounding the Genesis Flood, In Walsh,
R E. (editor), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium
Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 553-566.
________, 1998b, Geophysical effects of impacts during the Genesis Flood, In Walsh, R E. (editor),
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions,
Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 567-579.
________,1998c, Earth Impacts and Noah’s Flood: a resource guide for educators and researchers,
Creation Education Materials.
Steele, S. R., (March 1999), The Upheaval Dome Impact Site: Flood Model Interpretations, Creation
Research Society Quarterly, 35:4, pp 236-237.
Wayne Spencer
Creation Education Materials
P.O. Box 153402
Irving, TX 75015
wayne@creationanswers.net

[Soldier4Christ]

In recent years, some creationists have addressed evidence
of impacts on Earth throughout the geologic record (Froede
and DeYoung, 1996; Froede and Williams, 1999; Oard,
1994; Spencer, 1998a; b, 1999). Remnants of impact craters,
called astroblemes, can be found in all types of rock and
all through the geologic column (Spencer, 1998a; 1999).
Approximately 160 impact sites on Earth have been documented.
The presence of special shocked minerals, gravity
anomalies, magnetic anomalies, circular or concentric fault
structures, and a variety of indications of catastrophic erosion
and deposition phenomena identify these as impact
structures. Sedimentary strata, generally understood by
creationists to have formed in Noah’s Flood, may contain
astrobleme structures, meteorites, impact-shocked minerals,
The Chesapeake Bay Impact and Noah’s Flood
Wayne R. Spencer and Michael J. Oard*

The largest impact structure in the United States, 85 kilometers (km) in
diameter, was discovered under Chesapeake Bay, centered near the small
town of Cape Charles on the eastern shore of Virginia. Evidence that the feature
is an impact structure includes shocked quartz, concentric normal faults,
gravity anomalies, and the presence of tektites. The Chesapeake Bay impact
structure cuts through 1 to 2 km of sedimentary rock classified by uniformitarian
scientists as Mesozoic to Eocene and is covered by hundreds of meters
(m) of other mid- to late-Cenozoic strata, including the Exmore breccia. The
impact likely occurred in water on the continental shelf. From an evolutionary
perspective, the crater is dated at 35.5 million years, or late Eocene, but there
is evidence that the impact was much more recent. We address the relationship
of this impact to the Creation-Flood model, and conclude that the impact
occurred during the Abative Phase of the Recessional Stage of the Flood, the
mid- to late-Flood, according to Walker’s biblical geological model.
* Wayne Spencer, M.S., Creation Education Materials,
P.O. Box 153402, Irving, TX 75015-3402
Michael J. Oard, M.S., 34 West Clara Court, Bozeman,
MT 59718
Accepted for publication: February 1, 2004
tektites and other impact-related features. This implies that
impacts occurred during the deposition of Flood sediments.
There are also a few impact structures in Precambrian
basement rock, suggesting that impacts began at the onset
of Noah’s Flood. Some impacts occurred in the post-Flood
period, as suggested by DeYoung (1994) for the Barringer
crater in Arizona.
The timing and character of impacts in the solar system
and on Earth have been topics of debate and discussion by
creationists (Faulkner, 1999; 2000; Faulkner and Spencer,
2000; Froede, 2002; Hovis, 2000; Spencer, 1994; 2000;
2002). Various possibilities regarding the timing of impacts
have been suggested, including during the Creation week
of Genesis 1, at or following the time of the Fall (Genesis
3), and within Noah’s Flood. Spencer has argued that
impacts took place within the Flood and that the same
event affected not only the Earth, but other objects in the
solar system as well (Spencer, 1994). Faulkner has suggested
impacts took place in the solar system during the
Creation week and on the Earth and Moon at the time
of the Flood. Froede and DeYoung (1996) proposed the
breakup of a planet in the asteroid region that generated
Creation Research Society Quarterly
Volume 41, No. 2 — December 2004
© 2004 Creation Research Society
Volume 41, December 2004 207
impacts in the inner solar system.
In this article, we will analyze a newly discovered large
impact structure in the United States. This feature is known
as the Chesapeake Bay impact and is now considered one
of the largest impacts ever discovered. We will place the
impact within the Creation-Flood model.
The Chesapeake Bay Astrobleme
In 1991 and 1992, a group of researchers from the U.S.
Geological Survey reported evidence of impact-shocked
minerals, glassy material, and concentric normal faults
in the region of Chesapeake Bay, Virginia (Poag, Powars,
Poppe, et. al., 1992; Koeberl, Poag, et. al., 1996). The presence
of shocked minerals and glassy material is a strong
indication of impact, especially since there is no indication
of igneous or volcanic activity in the vicinity. Though
evidence in the early 1990s strongly suggested an impact,
no crater structure was known in the region at that time except
a smaller one that is 10–15 km (6–9 mi) in diameter.
This is the Toms Canyon crater (Poag et al., 1992; Poag and
Poppe, 1998) northeast of Chesapeake Bay along the edge
of the continental slope. Subsequent studies of the region
included single channel and multichannel seismic reflection
profiles of the bay as well as a number of boreholes
that reached depths of 728 m (2,388 ft)(see USGS web site,
<http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/crater>). Boreholes
intersect the basement in some areas at a depth of 681 m
(2,234 ft)(Poag, Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999, p. 151).
Based on seismic reflection profiles, the sedimentary rocks
dip seaward. The dip begins gently at 9 m/km below the
coast section, but increases to a rate of about 58 m/km along
the continental margin (Poag, 1997, p. 46).
In these studies, a large crater was discovered below
southern Chesapeake Bay, centered at approximately 37° N
latitude and 76° W longitude, on the Delmarva Peninsula
near Cape Charles, Virginia (Figure 1). The crater averages
85 km (53 mi) in diameter, but the outer rim has slumped

cont'd on page two

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Two

heavily into the impact basin forming a scalloped margin
(Poag, 1997; Poag, Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999). The
structure encompasses an area from Virginia Beach to
Newport News to the mouth of the Rappahannock River on
the west (USGS web site; Poag, 1997). The geographic area
encompassed by the structure is roughly 6,400 km2 (2,471
mi2), about double the area of Rhode Island. The buried
crater structure lies at a depth of approximately 400–500 m
(1,312–1,641 ft) under the ground surface (near sea level).
The depth of the structure itself is roughly 1.3 km (4,265 ft),
based on the probable depth of the inner basin. Southeast
from the center of the crater, the edge of the continental
shelf is about 130 km (81 mi) away from the outer rim).
Seismic profiles reveal that numerous high-angle normal
faults and a few low-angle reverse faults disrupt the basement
inside the crater. Outside the crater, the surface of
the basement is generally smooth. The North American
tektite strewn field is now attributed to the Chesapeake Bay
impact (Poag et al., 1994).
The structure possesses a circular basin around the
edge, called an annular trough, with a central peak ring,
approximately 35–40 km (22–25 mi) in diameter, and
possibly another central peak inside the major peak ring
(Poag, Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999) (Figure 2). Gravity
measurements show a notable negative anomaly, circular
in shape, that corresponds to the inner peak ring structure
(Poag, 1997, p. 58). The underlying basement rock in the
annular trough region includes a number of concentric
normal faults that indicate large-scale slumping from what
would be the outer rim area inward and downward.
There are certain unique characteristics of the Chesapeake
astrobleme that distinguish it from some other impact
sites on Earth. First, since the impact likely occurred in
water, a large amount of water would have been vaporized,
generating a very significant aerosol plume. Vaporized and
fragmented rock and sediment would be entrained with the
steam explosion to produce the plume. The efficiency of
an impact in forming the crater structure in the target rock
depends on the depth of the water compared to the size of
the impactor. Greater water depths tend to make the crater
structure smaller and with lesser relief, as more of the energy
of impact is transferred into the water. The Chesapeake
Bay crater is of nearly the same size as the Acraman impact
crater in Australia and the Popigai crater in Siberia. For the
Acraman structure,
the impactor has been
estimated to be about
4.7 km in diameter, assuming
it was a chondritic
asteroid (Williams,
1994). Because
the sediments under
the Chesapeake site
were likely of a weaker
material than those at
the Acraman crater,
it may be reasonable
to estimate the size of
the Chesapeake impactor
in the range of
3–5 km (~2–3 mi) in
diameter, depending
on its velocity. Since
the size of the impactor
was perhaps significantly
more than
the water depth, most
of the energy would
go into forming the
crater structure and
producing a powerful
tsunami. The tsunami
and the backwash gen-
erated from it seem to have eroded off the crater rim itself
and caused the deposition of breccia that fills the crater.

cont'd on page three

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Three

The Uniformitarian Date
of the Astrobleme
Evolutionary scientists have arrived at the generally accepted
date of the impact from studies of nearby core
samples and seismic data. They argue that the crater is of
the same age as the Toms Canyon impact crater northeast
of Chesapeake Bay and the same age as core samples from
Site 612 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) from the
New Jersey continental shelf (Koeberl, Poag, Reimold, et.
al., 1996). The Chesapeake Bay crater is thus dated as 35.5
million years based on radiometric dating of tektites from
the DSDP Site 612 core samples and from correlation of
microfossils such as foraminifera from the crater with those
in nearby deposits.
In relation to the standard evolutionary geologic column,
the crater structure cuts through strata ranging from
middle or upper Eocene down to early Mesozoic and
older igneous basement rock. Much of the stratigraphic
information of the pre- and post-impact sedimentary rocks
comes from the Virginia coastal plain. These formations
seem to be relatively widespread sheets (Koeberl, Poag, and
Reimold, 1996) and probably are generally representative
of the sediments around and above the crater, except for
three formations found mainly within the crater. Table 1
presents a stratigraphic section based primarily on the Langley
corehole near Hampton, Virginia. This core was drilled
to 635.1 m (2,083 ft) in the annular trough, approximately
midway between the outer rim and the inner basin. The
coastal plain and continental margin deposits around the
impact crater are underlain by igneous and metamorphic
basement rocks broken up in places by rift basins filled
with sedimentary rocks (Powars, 2000). The long axes of
the rift basins are parallel to the coast and the Appalachian
Mountains. This basement rock consists of granite or
greenstone, a metamorphosed basic igneous rock similar
to basalt but extruded at significantly higher temperatures.
Uniformitarian geologists date the rift sediments as Triassic
or Jurassic. The pre-impact sedimentary rocks thicken
seaward into the Baltimore Canyon trough. This trough is
located below the continental shelf and slope and extends
from Cape Hatteras to Long Island with an area of 200,000
km2 (77,220 mi2), all covered with sediments that obtain a
maximum thickness of 18 km (11 mi) in the northern part
of the trough (Pickering, Hiscott, and Hein, 1989, p. 264).
These sedimentary rocks are siliciclastic rocks with minor
limestone, dated by uniformitarian scientists as Middle
Jurassic to late Eocene (Poag, 1997).
The lower portion of the crater is filled with what is
called the Exmore breccia. Such a feature is not characteristic
of continental craters but seems to be common in
craters along continental margins. If the eastern part of
North America were significantly covered with water at the
time of the impact, then a strong tsunami would have been
generated and spread outward from the crater traveling a
long distance inland over what is now the continent before
depositing sedimentary materials. Thus, extensive impact
deposits would not be found surrounding Chesapeake Bay.
However, there would be a backwash as the water flowed
back into the excavated crater. This backwash appears to
be responsible for many features of the strata in and around
the crater, such as the Exmore breccia. The shape of the
inner peak ring structure and its dimensions suggest that
it was filled extremely rapidly with the breccia, probably
in just a few minutes. This is indicated by the physics of
central peak and peak ring formation (Melosh, 1989) as
well as from the very high sedimentation rates that were
involved (Poag, 1997).
Further evidence that the backwash deposited the Exmore
breccia is that it contains clasts of a wide variety of
materials in a gray, silty, sandy and clayey matrix, sometimes
not completely consolidated (Powars, 2000). Poag (2000, pp.
16–17) provides an interesting description of the breccia:
Suddenly, the drillers were pulling out bright, multicolored
core segments, which resembled psychedelic barber
poles. The dominant constituent of this garish deposit was
grayish green sand, whose color came from an abundance
of iron-rich glauconite. Imbedded within the glauconitic
sand was a kaleidoscopic array of larger clasts, ranging
from dime-sized pebbles to six-foot boulders. The clasts
changed rapidly and randomly downcore through nearly
every color and hue of the rainbow.
The breccia also contains marine fossils that would be
classified from Cretaceous to Eocene. Indeed, some of
these fossils would be classified as Upper Eocene in age,
but no strata have been identified as a possible source for
these fossils anywhere in Virginia and no Upper Eocene
sedimentary clasts have been found in the breccia cores.
This could suggest some fossils and fragments in the breccia
have been transported long distances. Some clasts are
rounded and some are angular with some over 3 m (10
ft) in diameter (Poag, 1997; Powars, 2000). Outside the
outer rim of the crater, the Exmore breccia ranges from
10 to 30 m (33–98 ft) in thickness. It may have extended
as a once continuous deposit farther outside the outer rim
in some areas. Much of it has apparently been eroded. A
short distance inside the outer rim it thickens to over 300 m
(985 ft) and also seems to fill the inner basin. The Exmore
breccia is up to 1,200 m (3,937 ft) thick in the central part
210 Creation Research Society Quarterly

cont'd on page four

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Four

Stratigraphic
Unit
Chesapeake Area
Strata Names
Depth
(feet) Description of Strata
Pleistocene
Tab Formation
(Columbia Group)
0 to 11
Paleochannels cut into older units;
oxidized muddy sand, muddy & sandy
gravel, cobbles of chert & quartz up to 4
inches in dimension. No fossils in this from
the Langley core but shells found in other
areas.
Pliocene
Chowan River
Formation,
Yorktown Formation
11 to 76.3
Calcareous, muddy, very fine to fine
quartz sands, clays, silts, common micro- &
macrofossils
Miocene
Eastover Formation 76.3 to 223.8
Muddy, very fine to medium sands, fossils
include dinoflagellates, ostracodes, &
mollusks
Lower Chesapeake
Group, Calvert and
St. Marys
223.8 to 470.9
Shelly sands, silts and clays with
microfossils
Oligocene
Old Church Formation
and Delmarva Beds
470.9 to 601.3
Shells, glauconitic & phosphatic quartz
sands in clay-silt matrix, microfossils
Eocene
Chickahominy
Formation
601.3 to 774
(up to 227 ft
thick in other
locations)
Dry, clayey silt, fine sand, iron sulfides,
extensive burrows. Fauna include
planktonic foraminifera, calcareous
nanofossils, coral, shells
Exmore Breccia
(upper Eocene)
Lower Pamunkey
Group
774 to 1,470
Breccia within crater. Breccia clasts from
< 1 inch to 30 feet in dimension. Clay
and sandy mixtures, varied clasts (some
rounded, some angular). Clasts consist of
clay, limestone, & cross-bedded sand.
Upper part in a sandy matrix. Shocked
quartz present at 820 feet. Pollen and
mollusk fossils, wood present.
Cretaceous
Upper Cenomanian
Formations Potomac
Group
1,470 to
2,054.7
Mega-slump blocks, feldspar and quartz
sands, clay-silt clasts, chert and
granodiorite pebbles
Paleozoic
Basement metamorphosed
granodiorite at
Langley core
2,054.7 to
2,083.8
Below crater; granite in some other
locations
of the crater (Poag, 1997; Powars, 2000). The total volume
of the breccia is estimated at 4,300 km3 (Poag, 1997, p. 62).
Because this breccia is so permeable, it is described as a
hypersaline aquifer, which has been known from the early
1900s. The groundwater in this aquifer is about 50% saltier
than seawater (Poag, 1997). The reason for the existence of
this hypersaline aquifer is uncertain (Poag, 1997, p. 69).
The breccia covering the Chesapeake crater structure
provides strong evidence of its impact origin. It contains
shocked quartz and what is known as “impact glass,” which
is believed to be melted and metamorphosed basement
rock. A number of core samples show indications of shock.
Planar shock deformation features tend to occur along certain
characteristic crystal orientations, and the particular
sets of planes involved allow calculation of the pressures.
The highest shock pressures indicated from the Chesapeake
samples are in the range of 20 to 60 gigapascals (Koeberl,
Poag, Reimold and Brandt, 1996; Poag, Gohn, and Powers,
2001). Some quartz grains from the breccia samples
exhibited six different sets of these planar deformations
(called lamellae).
Another unique feature within the Chesapeake crater
indicating an impact in water is the mega-slump blocks (or
megablocks) found in the annular trough region outside
the inner peak ring (Poag, 1997; Poag, Hutchinson, and
Colman, 1999). These large blocks represent fractured
pre-impact (Cretaceous) sedimentary rocks that slumped
into the crater. These slumps have created the bulges and
embayments in plan view along the outer rim of the crater.
They are also believed responsible for removing practically
all evidence of a raised lip at the outer rim. Some of these
blocks are over a kilometer in length. Many fractures and
large faults are found in this rock, some of which reach
downward into the basement material. These blocks are
over 300 m (985 ft) high over much of the annular trough
region. Some of the faults appear to be normal and some
have apparently rotated into the crater. The vibrations
and initial shock waves from the impact may have caused
many of the fractures, making the crater bowl structure and
terraces vulnerable to erosion and movement. The liquid
water column ejected upward by the steam explosion and
waves from the backwash very likely caused most of the
crater sides and floor to be broken and eroded into the
trough region. This has left the outer rim escarpment a very
sharp single-step structure around much of the impact rim,
though on the northern rim the structure seems to be terraced
(Poag, Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999). Such large
megablocks in the annular trough region are not normally
found in craters located on the continents. These faults
and large blocks seem to be a result of the impact having
occurred in water.
The post-impact sedimentary strata are 300–500 m
(985–1,641 ft) thick above the crater and are dated from late
Eocene to Quaternary within the uniformitarian timescale
(Poag, 1997, p. 45–46). The stratigraphy is based on seismic
reflection profiles and borehole data. The stratigraphy
above the crater differs somewhat from the stratigraphy in
the Chesapeake Bay area outside the crater rim, especially
the lower strata. Seismic reflection profiles indicate that the
first three of the overlying formations and the very lowest
part of a fourth overlying formation are constrained only
within the crater rim. The upper formations are about 140
m (460 ft) thick over the crater and are regionally extensive
outside the crater, thickening substantially eastward toward
the Baltimore Canyon trough.

cont'd on page five

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Five

Evidence That Contradicts the
Uniformitarian Timescale
From a young-Earth viewpoint, the impact would have
occurred around 5,000 years ago, while the uniformitarian
model assumes an age of 35.5 million years. This is a radical
difference in time. Is there any evidence to suggest which
timescale is better supported by the data? A possible argument
that the Flood timescale is more nearly correct comes
from analyzing the fallacies regarding the compacting and
subsiding of the Exmore breccia for the supposed 35 million
years of uniformitarian time (Poag, 1997, pp. 71–74). In fact,
it is still subsiding as indicated by one of the fastest rises in
sea level anywhere in the world along the Bay coast (Poag,
2000, p. 112)! Only part of this rise could be due to eustatic
sea level rise, so most, if not all of it, is likely due to the
continued subsidence of the Exmore breccia. Furthermore,
this continuous sagging likely predetermined the location
of Chesapeake Bay (Poag, 1997). Moreover, a block along
the west rim seems to have slumped down during the late
Pliocene of the uniformitarian timescale (Johnson, Kruse,
Vaughn, et. al., 1998), well after the impact. It seems paradoxical
that such subsidence and slumping could continue
for 35 million years. Surely, the breccia and slump blocks
should have settled long ago. We believe such evidence is
more indicative of a recent impact and rapid sedimentation
in the crater and the continental margin.
Dating the Impact within
a Flood Framework
How can we place the Chesapeake Bay impact within the
Creation-Flood model? First, we must place the impact
within the time frame of the Flood. The Exmore breccia
appears consistent with the impact having occurred concurrently
with erosional processes of Noah’s Flood. Such
212 Creation Research Society Quarterly
thick breccia would not be expected to be only near the
crater and coastline, considering the size of the impact, if
the continent were exposed as it exists today at the time of
the impact. With the continent not submerged, a monstrous
tsunami hundreds or possibly even a few thousand
meters high would have been created racing onshore along
the Atlantic coast (Poag, 2000, p. 50; Ward and Asphaug,
2000). We would expect copious breccia spread hundreds of
kilometers inland. However, breccia has not been observed
inland more than about 25–30 km (~15–19 mi) from the
crater rim. If the continent were submerged during the
impact (even partially), this might significantly change how
sediment would have been deposited on the continent by
the tsunami and post-impact giant waves. If the Chesapeake
impact occurred during a period of great erosion from the
continent, such as in the Recessive Stage of the Flood, the
eroded material would tend to be found in the crater cavity
and along the continental margin, as observed. Thus the
distribution of the breccia argues for the event occurring
as Floodwater receded, while a significant fraction of the
continent was still submerged.
This evidence is further supported considering the energy
of the impact. The Chesapeake Bay impact released
100 times the combined energy of all existing nuclear
weapons! Such an impact is estimated to have had the
kinetic energy equivalent to approximately 10 trillion tons
of TNT (Poag, 2000, p. 96), while the total potential energy
yield from the world’s entire nuclear arsenal is 100 billion
tons of TNT. Though the impact occurred in one region
of the world, its environmental ramifications would have
been worldwide, including a drop in temperature similar
to a nuclear winter due to ejected dust and aerosols.
In order to further refine the timing of the impact within
the Flood time frame, we applied the particular biblical geological
model of Walker (1994) because it is based strictly
on the Bible (Figure 3). The model has defining criteria
for its various stages and phases that allow it to be related to
observations of the rock record. In Walker’s model, the time
from the onset of the Flood to the point where the water
depth reached its peak, the Inundatory Stage, is estimated
at 60 days. The draining of the Floodwater off the future
continents, the Recessional Stage of the Flood, is about
300 days. Other creationists
believe the Inundatory Stage
was 150 days and the Recessional
Stage was 220 days
(Oard, 2001a, p. 7).
In Walker’s model, the
continental shelf, slope, and
rise sediment were formed by
sheet flow off the continent
during the Abative Phase of
the Recessive Stage of the
Flood as the continents and
mountains were rising and the
ocean basins and valleys were
sinking down (Oard, 2001a):
Regional scale sediments
would be expected during
the Abative Phase [sic] as
the flood waters began to
move in large sheets from
the continents. Local scale
sediments would be formed
during the Dispersive Stage as
the receding waters separated
into complexes of lakes and
ponds connected by flowing
water courses (Walker, 1994,
p. 591).
Thus, the continental margins
are typical features of the
Abative Phase of the Recessive Stage. The very shallow
and wide continental shelf and the steep drop-off of the
continental slope are paradoxical features within the uniformitarian
scheme, because longshore currents and mass
wasting should have produced a gradual descent to the deep
sea (King, 1983, pp. 199–200). During the Abative Phase of
the Flood, currents perhaps thousands of kilometers wide
flowed off the rising continents, likely at high speed at times.
These currents would be expected to erode the surface of
the rising continents and deposit the sediments in deeper
water at the edge of the continents where the currents would
decrease in velocity and rapidly deposit the sediments. We
argue that these off-continent currents explain the formation
of the pre- and post-impact sediments along the east
coast of Virginia. Thus, the impact would have probably
occurred during the Abative Phase of the Flood.
When the continental margin is examined by seismic
reflection profiles, the post-impact sedimentary rocks,
300 to 500 m (985–1,641 ft) thick, are continuous and
generally horizontal above the crater, although dipping
gently inward into the crater with short offsets caused by
numerous normal faults (Poag, Plescia, and Molzer, 2002).
The offsets are attributed to differential compaction of the
breccia and slump-block motion near the outer rim (Poag,
Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999; Johnson, Kruse, Vaughn,
et al., 1998, p. 507). These strata are also continuous with
the generally horizontal strata along the coastal plain and
continental shelf along much of the Atlantic margin (Poag,
1997; Klitgord, Hutchinson, and Shouten, 1988). Occasional
onlapping strata imaged by seismic reflection along
the continental shelf indicate the sediments came from the
continent (Poulsen, Flemings, et al., 1998). These post-impact
sediments thicken and extend significantly seaward by
deposition from sheet flow off the continents.
A second reason for believing the impact occurred during
the Abative Phase is that very few submarine canyons
have been detected in the continental shelf sediments.
Submarine canyons, mostly developed after the formation
of the continental margin, are typical Dispersive Phase
or channelized flow geomorphological features (Oard,
2001b). This indicates that nearly the entire continental
margin was deposited before the submarine canyons were
cut. For instance, Fulthorpe, Austin and Mountain (2000,
p. 817) state:
High-resolution multichannel seismic reflection profiles
confirm that middle-late Miocene continental slope canyons
off New Jersey are rare, in contrast to their prevalence
on the slope today.
The rarity of submarine canyons within the continental
margin sedimentary rocks is a problem for uniformitarian
scientists because numerous canyons should be cut over
the 125 million-year period the continental margin was
supposedly formed. It also indicates that the impact must
have occurred before the Dispersive Phase, which would
place it in the Abative Phase.

cont'd on page six

[Soldier4Christ]

Page Six

Conclusions
The Chesapeake Bay impact excavated thick Mesozoic and
early Cenozoic sediments, penetrated into basement rocks,
and was covered by mid- and late-Cenozoic marine sediments.
The geologic context of the crater and the unique
characteristics of the structure suggest a large impact from
space occurred in water. Many impact related features have
been discovered, such as shocked quartz. Following the
impact, a tsunami eroded the crater area and post-tsunami
giant waves and backwash deposited a large volume of breccia
and other materials in the crater. The breccia can only
be found near and within the crater, likely because of strong
erosive currents coming off the continents after the impact.
An additional 300–500 m (985–1,641 ft) of generally continuous,
horizontal sediment was deposited above the crater
structure after the impact. The volume and character of the
sediments in and around the Chesapeake structure point
to the impact occurring during Noah’s Flood.
Erosion from the continents and deposition along
the continental margin from receding Floodwater in the
Abative Phase of the Flood provides an explanation of the
Exmore breccia and the sediments covering the crater. It
appears the continent was largely or at least partially covered
with water at the time of the impact. The Abative Phase of
the mid-to-late-Flood in Walker’s model is proposed as the
time frame in which the impact occurred.
Impacts were probably most prolific during the early
period of the Flood and that much of the evidence was
erased by the violence of the Flood. We have presented
evidence in this paper proposing that impacts continued
into the mid- to late-Flood period based on what we found
regarding the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater. The evidence
supports the young-Earth Flood model of Earth history.

[Soldier4Christ]

Our Amazing Solar System
by
Wayne Spencer

In recent years the space program has discovered exciting things we never knew about our solar system. Many interesting things were never photographed until recent years. The Voyager I and II spacecrafts especially added a great deal to our knowledge. This paper is an introduction to the solar system from a creationist perspective. Much has been written about the solar system by planetary scientists and astronomers who are evolutionists. In astronomy, believing evolution means accepting the idea that all the stars and galaxies ultimately came from the Big Bang, and our solar system formed long after that. The Big Bang explosion is believed to have happened about 16 to 20 billion years ago. Our Sun and other objects in our solar system is said to have formed about 4.6 billion years ago. The details of how the solar system would have formed by natural processes are included toward the end of this paper. This paper is a creationist alternative to the evolution based ideas on how the solar system came to be.

Evolution is accepted by most scientists and evolution-based scientific research is funded with lots of money. But, creationist scientists are also studying astronomy and finding exciting facts that agree with a creation view. No scientist can scientifically prove anything about the past or how things formed in the beginning. Proving things scientifically requires being able to repeat measurements or experiments. No scientist has a time machine to go back in time and make a video of what happened as it occurred! But, what we believe about the origin of things is important since it determines how we think in other areas of life. So, we do need answers. We can use science to help us decide which view of the beginning is more reasonable. We cannot have complete certainty from science alone, since scientific ideas change and science is just not perfect. Scientists can learn amazing things, but they are not perfect. To have complete certainty about how everything got here, we need the written word of the only One who was there, our Creator. The author believes the Creator-God has spoken to us all in the Bible.

There are important implications for us in studying the solar system. God intends for man to give Him glory for His greatness as Creator. The extreme features of the moons and planets teach us that God is not limited to the familiar things we know of on earth. Serious study of the Solar System should allow us to better appreciate and understand the excellent home God has given us called Earth. Also, some events that have occurred in the solar system may have affected Earth.

According to Isaiah 45:18 in the Old Testament, our planet was designed not to be "empty" but to be inhabited. As a whole, our solar system has been made with certain regular patterns and also with significant "surprises." The regular patterns provide stability which makes life safer for us on Earth. The "surprises" display God's power and unlimited creativity. The following will examine facts pointing to design and facts implying there have been some major catastrophes in the history of the solar system. The Solar System has not remained in the same condition since creation. As we take a kind of tour of the solar system in the following pages, we will become more aquainted with our planet's "neighborhood."

"Catastrophism" in the study of earth history refers to the concept that catastrophes involving processes out of the ordinary, especially Noah's Flood, caused the formation of the fossils, rock strata, and landforms we see today. The approach of to evolutionists has always been to rely on natural processes known to be occurring today operating over vast periods of time. This is gradual evolution and this approach is the accepted one in evolutionary biology, geology, and astronomy. Today, in both geology and in studies of solar system origins, scientists are turning to an approach which relies on multiple catastrophes which occur over long periods of time. In the Solar System, this evolutionary catastrophic approach does avoid certain problems of the traditional view, but it becomes quite cumbersome and difficult to believe due its reliance on numerous very unlikely events. Also, the evolutionary catastrophic approach ignores evidence that the Solar System is only thousands of years old.

A number of observations of different kinds can be explained in a simpler and more convincing way if 1) the Solar System is young, not 4.6 billion years in age, 2) there has been some major catastrophe that occurred some time in the past, and 3) some features are not due to natural processes but have been designed by a Creator-God. "Design" usually means God intelligently planned things to be a certain way, for a purpose. It also means that supernatural processes dominated when God was actually creating in the beginning, then the orderly natural processes He made "took over" after that. Natural processes, like gravity or magnetism, preserve the order that God created in the beginning. This doesn't mean God is not in control or that He cannot do miracles today.

This paper will describe some facts that may indicate design and that some major catastrophe may have occurred in the history of the Solar System. Two opposing evolutionary views will be explained as well. These views are the Modified Nebula Hypothesis and the Capture Theory. A creationist approach which allows for some kind of major Solar-System-wide catastrophe appears to be superior to both evolutionary views. Four possible solar system catastrophes will be suggested. This catastrophe would then be responsible for most of the craters and some other characteristics of our System's thousands of objects.

Several terms and conventions need to be understood to appreciate what follows. In the study of the Solar System many properties of the planets are compared to the Earth. For instance one Astronomical Unit (A.U.) is 92.6 million miles, the approximate distance from the Earth to the Sun. Other earth properties, such as its mass or diameter, are often assigned the value of one, to make it easy to compare with the other planets. The region from Mars inward (1.5 A.U. from the Sun) is known as the inner solar system and from Jupiter outward (5.2 A.U. from the Sun) is the outer solar system.

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Design in the Solar System

There exist several orderly patterns present in the Solar System as a whole. Scientists usually interpret these as clues that there is a natural cause of the pattern. Sometimes natural forces can produce interesting patterns. There are also certain surprising motions of objects for which it is difficult to imagine a natural cause. Creationists believe that some of these patterns and unusual motions have been intelligently planned by the Creator-God. As research proceeds, it is possible that some of the facts which to a creationist points to design may be found to be due to some natural effect. In a sense everything in nature exists by design since God creates things for a reason and He is in control of all things. Some things in nature, however, are special evidences for design since they seem so unlikely, given natural processes alone.

Two of these patterns in the Solar System are that the planet's orbits are inclined very little and they are close to being circles. (Again, Pluto is an exception to this.) Evolutionist space scientists usually believe that the planet orbits are near the plane of the earth's orbit in angle because all the planets were once part of the same spinning cloud that became our Solar System. In such a large spinning cloud, collisions would tend to flatten it into a rotating disk. It could be that the low inclination angles are actually by design instead, to allow people on earth to see the planets. The planet orbits may also exhibit design in being nearly circular. If planetary orbits were very elliptical in shape, collisions would be much more likely. Elliptic orbits often precess, which means the orbit itself rotates slowly. Precession can lead to orbits crossing each other on occasion, making collisions more likely. We can be glad that the planets go on in their paths and never collide. This is safe for us.

If the inclination angles of the planet orbits were not small we would not be able to see the planets well from earth. The angle one must look at in the sky to see a planet, such as Mars for instance, depends on the inclination of Mar's orbit and on the latitude on earth at which the person is standing. Since the earth is tilted it also depends on where the earth is in its orbit at the time. All this means that if the planet orbits were inclined at high angles, the planets would only be visible to us rarely and perhaps only for people at certain latitudes on earth. Individuals living near the equator might seldom or never see a planet if it's orbit were inclined a great deal. It would not serve God's purpose for it to be so hard to see the planets, because Genesis 1:14-18 says the lights we see in the sky are to mark seasons and days. The light of the stars and planets give order and beauty to the night and twilight times. Since the planet orbits are inclined small angles, most people, wherever they live are able to see the planets much of the year, each planet at its own times and dates.

Isaac Newton, the great physicist who explained the motions of the planets and was the first to determine some of their masses, believed the Solar System was designed. He said the following:

"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the Solar System, I see the earth at the right distance from the Sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance. The motions of the planets require a Divine arm to impress them."(1)

There is another interesting pattern in the composition of the planets. "Composition" is what the planet or object is made of, including how much of each material. The inner planets are dense and rocky, being composed of elements with high melting points. The densities are shown in table 1. The outer planets are less dense and are composed mainly of elements with low melting and boiling points--often gases like hydrogen, nitrogen, or ammonia. The general pattern is high boiling point elements near the Sun where the temperature is high and low boiling point elements farfrom the Sun where it is quite cold.

Evolutionists attribute this pattern to materials solidifying in the cloud according to temperature and pulling toward the center due to gravity. The higher the temperature in the cloud, the faster lighter elements (like nitrogen) would boil away. Planets closer to the Sun would not "hold on to" light elements because of this effect. Rather than being merely a result of natural forces, perhaps this pattern exists for stability and for displaying variety. This would give a purpose to how God made the solar system.

Elsewhere in the Solar System this pattern sometimes is followed and sometimes is not. Evolutionists expected the same pattern to be true for the moons of the giant planets. However, Laurence Soderblom of the U.S. Geological Survey has been quoted saying, "They should become less dense as you move outward, but Saturn's satellites don't follow."(2),(3) There is a similar pattern, or "composition gradient" as it is called, across the asteroid belt. However, for the asteroid belt the situation is much more complex since there are several different types of asteroids and some of them show this relationship and some do not. Pluto is somewhat of a misfit among the outer planets; in recent years astronomers have found that its density is higher than previously thought, implying it must have more rock inside than expected.(4) In the Solar System, there appears to be just enough regular patterns to make natural explanations sound good, but there are just enough surprises to make evolutionary explanations hard to believe. The Creator-God is not limited to the naturalistic patterns predicted by evolutionists.

These are some of the patterns in the system as a whole, now let's look at some features that may indicate creation by design. These include several unusual motions and planetary rings. At present scientists know of no natural processes which adequately explain their origin. It should be kept in mind that as research proceeds, it is possible that at least some aspects of these phenomena could be found to have a natural cause.

The planets and over 60 known moons in the Solar System are in periodic motion in their revolution around the Sun and in their rotation. Anytime there is periodic motion with more than one object, the phenomenon of resonance is possible. Resonance here means a special timing relationship between two orbiting objects. The relationship is in the relative positions of the two objects over time. These resonances in some cases are clearly caused by gravity and the periodic motion of the objects. In other cases it is difficult to believe that the relationship could evolve by chance due to natural effects. Some resonances may require intelligent arranging of the positions and speeds involved. One example is an orbit resonance between Jupiter's moons Io and Europa. Europa travels slower being outside Io in it's orbit. Io completes two orbits as Europa completes one. This resonance causes their orbital periods (the time for one orbit) to be in a ratio of 2.007. There is also a similar resonance between Europa and Ganymede, the next moon out from Europa. These resonances at Jupiter are part of the cause of the volcanoes on the moon Io.

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An amazing example of unusual motion relates to two of Saturn's many moons known as the coorbitals. Not far outside Saturn's rings lie two small moons called Janus and Epimetheus. They are irregular in shape, varying from 100 to 220 kilometers in size. From Voyager I and II data scientists found that they lie in two orbits bringing them very near each other. Approximately every four years, Janus and Epimetheus actually exchange orbits! They trade orbits because of a very delicate balance of speed and distance which is extremely unlikely. These moons do not collide or force each other out of orbit. Scientists know this because of very precise plots of the moon positions made by both Voyager spacecraft. Most scientists assume the two moons were once one object which broke apart or which were two fragments of a collision. This might explain why their orbits are so near each other, but it does not explain how the speed and position could be so matched to make this "dance" possible.

Planetary Rings

The Voyager I and II spacecraft provided us with a vast amount of new data about the rings of the outer planets. It is now well known that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings. Each of these planets has a set of rings with its own unique characteristics. Many fascinating and mysterious features were discovered in the rings. Outside Saturn's main rings is a very narrow ring called the F-ring. The F-ring has two moons called shepherd moons, named Prometheus and Pandora. One of these moons is inside the F-ring and one is outside the F-ring. Together they keep the ring particles (mostly chunks of water ice) from drifting away from the ring. Some features in the rings of Saturn only last a few hours. An example is the spoke-like features that were seen to travel around as the planet rotated. The F-ring even had something that looked like a braid. The braid was found by Voyager I and was gone by the time Voyager II arrived at Saturn.

Four observations surprised planetary scientists and agree well with a creationist view. First, Voyager found more dust present in and around the rings than expected. If the rings were 4.6 billion years old as the planets are believed to be, this dust should have long ago fallen into the planet. This applies especially to Jupiter's ring, which is made completely of microscopic dust. Scientists have reacted to this discovery by proposing mechanisms for how the dust could be replenished continually. This possibility cannot be dismissed without serious study. But, this dust could mean some rings are very young, maybee even much younger than the planet! It has been estimated that some of the dusty rings at Uranus must be less than 1,000 years in age.(6) Scientists were even more amazed at what is called the fine structure of Saturns rings. This structure includes two of the four important observations, that there are rings which subdivide into narrower rings, and that many rings have clear cut sharply defined edges. Collisions and other processes tend to cause the ring particles to spread out or fall into the planet. One prominent planetary scientist, Larry Esposito, in discussing this spreading of narrow rings said, "Either they are young and have not had time to spread, or they are confined by some force."(7) It turns out that orbit resonances between ring particles and certain moons explain some of this structure in the rings. Moons sometimes create gaps in the rings by pulling on any objects that happen to be "in the wrong place at the wrong time." But there simply are not enough moons to go around to explain the many gaps and fine rings within rings. M.I.T. professor James Elliot, in describing the exciting days of discovery of this structure said, "A thousand rings seemed a monumental problem for theorists. They had run out of resonances long ago."( There are several types of waves which travel through or around Saturn's rings and some complex processes occurring which scientists have used to estimate the ages of the rings. Saturn's A ring, based on ring waves and collision processes, has been given an upper limit of 10 million years.(9) This is the maximum, meaning these rings are probably even younger.

The rings of all four of the giant outer planets bear the marks of being much less than billions of years old, possibly even thousands. Although we have learned very much about the planetary rings, there are two crucial questions we are unable to answer. We do not know how round or irregular in shape the ring particles may be, nor how hard or soft. Without this information it is probably impossible to thoroughly understand the rings. It is possible there are two classes of rings. There may be created rings which have designed structure built in from the beginning, and catastrophic rings. The catastrophic rings may have come from the debris of a collision or perhaps from the debris of a moon or asteroid that broke up when it came too close to the planet.

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Evidence for Catastrophes in the Solar System

Although God has created order in our Solar System, there have been processes which occur today either very little or not at all that have altered that order. Occasionally, as we watch the television news we are shocked and amazed at the effects on earth of natural disasters. Our knowledge of the Solar System implies that events have occurred on other planets and moons which make earth's natural disasters seem gentle! Collisions are the primary catastrophes to be concerned about in the Solar System. Another process suggested often today is called "capture." This is when one object passes close enough to a planet to be pulled by gravity into orbit around the planet, rather than continuing on in its former path. The "object" could be a moon, an asteroid, or a comet. The capture of a passing object by the Sun or a planet is a very unlikely occurrence. Capture and collision processes are invoked frequently by planetary scientists who believe evolution theories in order to explain some of the Solar System's remarkable features. There are other powerful geological processes to consider on planet and moon surfaces, but even these are probably caused in some cases by impacts.

What would be the signs of catastrophic events in the Solar System? What would be clues of order which has existed from the beginning? At the beginning of the seventeenth century a few people believed Copernicus' theory that put the Sun at the center of the solar system. At that time these people believed that the orbits of the planets were circles. This was due to a strong belief that the circle reflected perfect order and therefore God would certainly use circles. Johannes Kepler, however, found that the observations and mathematics clearly showed the paths were elliptical. The Creator did not quite follow the expected pattern. Today, we must guard against letting beliefs we assume are true keep us from the truth. Nothing in the Bible precludes there being major collisions in the Solar System. Some of them may have even affected Earth. Indeed, in recent years geologists have discovered about 130 large craters on Earth--a few over 100 miles in diameter. Collisions and unguided natural processes tend to destroy order. Creationists operate on the assumption that God acted supernaturally in the beginning to create order. Then, after the creation week, there was no longer any supernatural creating, but instead various natural conservation laws operated to maintain the original order. When we find random variations in the Solar System, such as the wide variation in the orbit tilts of the asteroids or in the irregular shapes of the asteroids, these could perhaps be signs of catastrophe. Regularity, symmetry of shape, circular orbits, and other special relationships could perhaps be signs of design.

If the solar system is not billions of years old, but only thousands, then this creates a mystery. The mystery is this: What happened to the solar system to create all the craters and other features? Several facts could be evidence of a major solar system catastrophe. These include orbit characteristics, cratering across the Solar System, and tilted and offset magnetic fields. One major catastrophe coupled with an assumed age of about 10,000 years or less has advantages in explaining the origin of the Solar System. Here, "major" means some event which affected much of the Solar System in a relatively short time, rather than over billions of years. Many problems with the evolutionary views stem from the assumption of an old system. Legitimate possibilities creationists have considered are 1) no major catastrophe but plenty of impacts since creation, 2) the explosion of a planet which resided in the region of the asteroids,(10) 3) the collision of two planets or of two objects of some kind, or 4) that a large cloud of debris passed through the Solar System.

The first type of observation is random variations of orbit characteristics. This leads us naturally to considering the asteroids. The asteroids are small objects orbiting the Sun, mostly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Some asteroids do cross earth's orbit and some have orbits carrying them even beyond Saturn, part of the time. The largest known asteroid is Ceres, which is roughly 500 miles in diameter. Scientists estimate there are probably hundreds of thousands of them. The total mass of the asteroids is estimated to be about one-tenth the mass of our Moon. Astronomers have discovered an interesting variety in the composition of asteroids. Details of their orbits and rotations are known for about two hundred. The origin of the asteroids may be the greatest mystery of the Solar System.

On the average, asteroids have orbits more elliptical and more inclined than the orbits of the planets. Eccentricities (the degree of elongation) usually are between .1 and .3 but can be as much as .6. Most of their orbits are inclined about 18 degrees or less, but a few are inclined much more. Sometimes two or more asteroids seem to rotate each other or even be attached to each other. Asteroids always seem to move in the right handed sense, and are often irregular in shape. These are some of the varied characteristics of the asteroids. Some properties of the asteroids seem to speak of collision processes and some do not.
 

Moons

There are over 60 known moons orbiting seven of the nine planets. The moons of the solar system display an amazing variety and gave scientists many surprises. Some of the surprising moons were Io (Jupiter), Ganymede (Jupiter), Titan (Saturn), and Miranda (Uranus). Before looking at other aspects of the moons, let us look at their motions.

Planetary moons have very interesting motions in several cases. Jupiter has 16 known moons which are neatly grouped into four groups of four according to distance. The second group are known as the Galilean moons; these would be the innermost group. The first group would be so close to Jupiter they could not be seen. Each of the four groups have orbits which are inclined nearly the same. The last group all orbit retrograde, in a left-handed direction around Jupiter. This arrangement also appears rather unlikely, especially if the moons all formed out of the same cloud Jupiter condensed from. It is often suggested that this group of moons have been captured, perhaps as one object which broke up. One of Saturn's innermost moons, Hyperion, seems to exhibit a changing or chaotic rotation. This implies either it is young or it was captured or struck in the not too distant past. Hyperion's motion needs to be studied further.

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