Flood geology
Encyclopedia
Flood geology is the interpretation of the geological history of the Earth in terms of the global flood described in Genesis 6–9. Similar views played a part in the early development of the science of geology
, even after the Biblical chronology had been rejected by geologists
in favour of an ancient Earth. In the contemporary literature, the term 'flood geology' is often taken to be synonymous with young Earth creationism
or creation science
. Adherents believe the Christian Bible
is inerrant and hold its passages to be historically accurate.
Flood geology contradicts the scientific consensus in geology, physics, chemistry, molecular genetics, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and paleontology, and the scientific community considers the subject to be pseudoscience
.
, Chrysostom and Augustine), believed that fossils were the remains of animals that were killed and buried during the brief duration of the Flood. The geological peculiarity in northern Europe where much is covered by layers of loam
and gravel
as well as erratic boulders
deposited hundreds of miles from their original sources furthered acceptance of the idea. Early geologists interpreted these features as the result of massive flooding (in the mid 19th century geologists accepted that they had been formed by ice age
glaciations). The global flood was associated with massive geographical upheavals, with old continents sinking and new ones rising, thus transforming ancient seabeds into mountain tops.
During the Age of Enlightenment
, significant works were compiled to proffer natural causes for the miracle
s recounted in the Bible. Naturalistic
explanations for a global flood were proposed in such works as An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth (1695) by John Woodward
and New Theory of the Earth (1696) by Woodward’s student William Whiston
.
The modern science of geology
was founded in Europe in the 18th century. Its practitioners sought to understand the history and shaping of the Earth through the physical evidence found in rocks and minerals. As many early geologists were clergymen, they naturally sought to link the geological history of the world with that set out in the Bible
. The ancient theory that fossil
s were the result of "plastic forces" within the Earth's crust had by this time been abandoned, with the recognition that they represented the remains of once-living creatures. This, though, raised a major problem: how did fossils of sea creatures end up on land, or on the tops of mountains?
By the early 19th century it was already thought that the Earth's lifespan was far longer than that suggested by literal readings of the Bible. (Benoît de Maillet
had estimated an age of 2.4 billion years by 1732 as against the 6,000 years proposed by Archbishop James Ussher
's famous chronology). In 1823 the Reverend William Buckland
, the first professor of geology at Oxford University, interpreted geological phenomena as Reliquiae Diluvianae; relics of the flood Attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge. His views were supported by other English clergymen naturalists at the time, including the influential Adam Sedgwick
, but these ideas were disputed by continental geologists and by 1830 Sedgwick was convinced by his own findings that the evidence only showed local floods.
Charles Lyell
's promotion of James Hutton
's ideas of uniformitarianism
advocated the principle that geological changes that occurred in the past may be understood by studying present-day phenomena. In common with Newton
, Hutton assumed that the world-system had been in a steady state since the day of creation, but unlike Newton he included in this vision not only the motion of celestial bodies and processes like chemical change on earth, but also processes of geological change. Christopher Kaiser writes:
The idea that all geological strata were produced by a single flood was rejected in 1837 by Buckland who wrote:
For a while, Buckland had continued to insist that some geological layers were related to the Great Flood, but grew to accept the idea that they represented multiple inundations which occurred well before humans existed. He was convinced by Swiss
geologist Louis Agassiz
that much of the evidence on which he relied was in fact the product of ancient ice ages, and became one of the foremost champions of Agassiz's theory of glaciations. Mainstream science abandoned the idea of flood geology that required major deviations from present physical processes.
, a Seventh-day Adventist
and amateur geologist who wrote a treatise in 1923 to provide a Seventh-day Adventist perspective on geology. Price's work was subsequently adapted and updated by Henry M. Morris
and John C. Whitcomb, Jr. in their The Genesis Flood
in 1961. Whitcomb was motivated after reading The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954) by theologian Bernard Ramm
. Ramm supported the view that scientists who are Christians could come to alternative interpretations to the strict six day creation, as promoted by Price, that are both Biblical and concordant with current scientific evidence. Morris and Whitcomb argued that the Earth was geologically recent, that the Fall of Man had triggered the second law of thermodynamics
, and that the Great Flood had laid down most of the geological strata in the space of a single year.
Ramm's book was supportive of religious and scientific dissent from flood geology. J. Laurence Kulp
, a geologist in fellowship with the Plymouth Brethren
, joined with other Christian geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, and biologists whose work related to radiocarbon dating, to persuade the Christian organization, American Scientific Affiliation
(ASA), not to officially support or endorse flood geology but to allow members to follow the scientific evidence rather than a literalist interpretation of the Bible. Kulp also wrote a detailed critique of Flood Geology, titled Deluge Geology, which was published in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation in 1950. When the ASA refused to align itself with flood geology, a new generation of Young Earth creationists was founded, many of whom organized themselves around Morris's Institute for Creation Research
. Subsequent research by the Creation Research Society
has observed and analyzed geological formations, within a flood geology framework, including the La Brea Tar Pits
, the Tavrick Formation (Tauric Formation, Russian: "Tavricheskaya formatsiya") in the Crimean Peninsula and Stone Mountain
, Georgia
. In each case, the creationists claimed that the flood geology interpretation had greater explanatory power than the uniformitarian explanation. The Creation Research Society claims that "uniformitarianism is wishful thinking".
The impact on creationism and fundamentalist Christianity of these ideas is considerable. Morris' theories of flood geology are widely promoted around the world, with his books being translated into many languages. Flood geology is still a major theme of modern creationism, though it is rejected by earth scientists
.
interpretation of the flood narrative in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 6–9). The narrative begins with God's decision to bring a deluge which will wipe out all life on earth except for those to be saved on Noah's Ark
. In the 600th year of Noah
's life God opens the "fountains of the deep" and the "windows of Heaven" and causes rain to fall on the earth for 40 days and nights. The flood increases for 150 days and covers "all the high mountains under heaven," at which point the Ark grounds on the mountains. The waters then retreat for 150 days, the earth dries, and Noah and his family and the animals and birds emerge to re-establish life on earth. (Seeley suggests that the authors of Genesis, like other peoples of the ancient Near East, conceived the earth as a flat, circular disk, floating like a bubble in a limitless expanse of water, with a solid sky (the firmament
) separating the dry land inhabited by man from the surrounding waters; when God opens the "windows of heaven" and the "fountains of the Deep", it is these waters which enter and flood the world).
Genesis also contains a chronology which places the Flood in the year 1656 after Creation in the standard Hebrew text (the Masoretic text
- other texts have slightly different chronologies). Correlating this with a date in the modern calendar has proven contentious - there have been over two hundred attempts, with outcomes varying from 2304 to 6934 years BC — but modern flood geology attempts to fit geological time within the framework of a "young" Earth
.
Scholars propose that the flood story was written around 550–450 BC as a reworking of the ancient Mesopotamian myth of the flood-hero Utnapishtim
. For the ancient author or authors, the purpose of the story was theological, elevating Hebrew monotheism over Babylonian polytheism. Within the overall narrative of the Genesis, the Flood mirrors, but in reverse, God's creation of "the heavens and the earth" in Genesis 1. That story tells how God creates an Earth which is good, but which becomes corrupted with violence, until in Genesis 6 he decides to destroy all life. He does this by opening the "windows of the firmament" and the "fountains of the Deep" and allowing the waters of the cosmos in. The chronology of the Flood replicates the chronology of the seven days of Creation: it begins in the second month, equivalent to the second day of Creation, the day on which the firmament was created; the waters then rise for 150 days (five months of 30 days each), until at the end of six months (equivalent to the six days of creative work in Genesis 1) the ark grounds on the highest mountain peak. (To underline the point, Noah's name means "rest" in Hebrew). After a month of rest (the equivalent of the seventh day of the Creation story), the waters recede for 150 days/five months as the world is "re-created": in the sixth month Noah waits, and in the seventh he and the animals exit the ark and give thanks to God.
Belief in a global Flood and a 6000 year history for the Earth had been largely abandoned by the mid-19th century. Their revival and rapid growth in the United States can be dated to the early 20th century, including, in a contemporary form, by Answers in Genesis
:
record are used as major pieces of evidence in the modern scientific explanation of the development and evolution
of life on Earth as well as a means to establish the age of the Earth
. Young Earth Creationists such as Morris and Whitcomb in their 1961 book, The Genesis Flood
, deny that the fossil record in the geologic column represents the evolution of life on earth over millions of years. The age of the fossils depends on the amount of time credited to the geologic column, which they ascribe to be about one year. Some flood geologists dispute geology's assembled global geologic column since index fossils are used to link geographically isolated strata to other strata across the map. Fossils are often dated by their proximity to strata containing index fossils whose age has been determined by its location on the geologic column. Oard and others say that the identification of fossils as index fossils has been too error prone for index fossils to be used reliably to make those correlations, or to date local strata using the assembled geologic scale.
Other creationists accept the existence of the geological column and believe that it indicates a sequence of events that might have occurred during the global flood. This is the approach taken by Institute for Creation Research
creationists such as Andrew Snelling, Steven A. Austin and Kurt Wise
, as well as Creation Ministries International. They cite the Cambrian explosion
— the appearance of abundant fossils in the upper Ediacaran
(Vendian) Period and lower Cambrian Period — as the pre-Flood/Flood boundary, the presence in such sediments of fossils that do not occur later in the geological record as part of a pre–flood biota that perished and the absence of fossilized organisms that appear later, such as angiosperms and mammal
s, as due to erosion of sediments deposited by the flood as waters receded off the land. Creationists say that fossilization can only take place when the organism is buried quickly to protect the remains from destruction by scavengers or decomposition They say that the fossil record is evidence of a single cataclysmic flood and not the record of a series of slow changes accumulating over millions of years.
Flood geologists have proposed numerous hypotheses to reconcile the sequence of fossils evident in the fossil column with the literal account of Noah's flood in the Bible. Whitcomb and Morris proposed three possible factors. One is hydrological, wherein the relative buoyancies of the remains based on the organisms' shapes and densities determined the sequence in which their remains settled to the bottom of the flood waters. The second factor they proposed was ecological, suggesting organisms living at the ocean bottom succumbed first in the flood and those living at the highest altitudes last. The third factor was anatomical and behavioral, the ordered sequence in the fossil column resulting from the very different responses to the rising waters between different kinds of organisms due to their diverse mobilities and original habitats. In a scenario put forth by Morris, the remains of marine life were the first to settle to the bottom, followed by the slower moving lowland reptiles, and culminating with mankind whose superior intelligence and ability to flee enabled them to reach higher elevations before they were overcome by the flood waters.
Some creationists believe that oil
and coal
deposits formed rapidly in sedimentary layers as volcanoes or flood waters flattened forests and buried the debris. They believe the vegetation decomposed rapidly into oil or coal due to the heat of the subterranean waters as they were unleashed from the Earth during the flood or by the high temperatures created as the remains were compressed by water and sediment.
Creationists
continue to search for evidence in the natural world that they consider to be consistent with the above description, such as evidence of rapid formation. For example, there have been claims of raindrop marks and water ripples at layer boundaries, sometimes associated with the claimed fossilized footprints of men and dinosaurs walking together. Such footprint evidence has been debunked by scientists and some have been shown to be fakes.
Anthropologists generally reject this view and highlight the fact that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts, where unusually severe floods can be expected to occur occasionally and will be recorded in tribal mythology. Geologists William Ryan and Walter C. Pitman, III
have suggested that the rapid filling of the Black Sea
(c. 7000 BC) at the end of the last Ice Age
may be responsible for the flood myths in the Near East. Newer evidence suggests that if there was a flood it was much smaller than Ryan and Pitman thought it had been.
", the rapid movement of tectonic plates
, in one form or another.
One specific form of runaway subduction is called "catastrophic plate tectonics", proposed by geophysicist John Baumgardner
and supported by the Institute for Creation Research
and Answers in Genesis
. This holds the rapid plunge of former oceanic plates into the mantle
caused by an unknown trigger mechanism which increased local mantle pressures to the point that its viscosity dropped several magnitudes according to known properties of mantle silicates. Once initiated, sinking plates caused the spread of low viscosity throughout the mantle resulting in runaway mantle convection and catastrophic tectonic motion as continents were dragged across the surface of the earth. Once the former ocean plates, which are thought to be denser than the mantle, reached the bottom of the mantle an equilibrium was reached. Pressures dropped, viscosity increased, runaway mantle convection stopped, leaving the surface of the earth rearranged. Proponents point to subducted slabs in the mantle which are still relatively cool, which they regard as evidence that they have not been there for millions of years of temperature equilibration.
Catastrophic plate tectonics is also associated with the creationist theory that the Earth's magnetic field reversed direction many times in rapid succession during the year-long global flood.
The hypothesis of catastrophic plate tectonics is considered pseudoscience and is rejected by the vast majority of geologists in favor of the conventional geological theory of plate tectonics
. It has been argued that the tremendous release of energy necessitated by such an event would boil off the Earth's oceans, making a global flood impossible. Not only does catastrophic plate tectonics lack any plausible geophysical
mechanism by which its changes might occur, it also is contradicted by considerable geological evidence (which is in turn consistent with conventional plate tectonics), including:
Conventional plate tectonics accounts for the geological evidence already, including innumerable details that catastrophic plate tectonics cannot, such as why there is gold in California, silver in Nevada, salt flats in Utah, and coal in Pennsylvania, without requiring any extraordinary mechanisms to do so.
. These were hypothesised to have, one by one, collapsed on the earth, resulting in a "succession of stupendous cataclysms, separated by unknown periods of time" burying fossils. The Genesis flood was thought to have been caused by "the last remnant" of this vapor. Although this final flood was geologically significant, it was hypothesized to account for far less of the fossil record than George McCready Price
attributed to it.
This hypothesis gained a following among Jehovah's Witnesses
and from Seventh-day Adventist
physicist Robert W. Woods, before being given prominent and repeated mention in The Genesis Flood
in 1961.
Though the vapor canopy theory has fallen into disfavour among most creationists, recent defences of the theory have been attempted by Dillow and Vardiman.
Modern geology, its sub-disciplines and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method
to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community
. Modern geology
relies on a number of established principles, one of the most important of which is Charles Lyell
's principle of uniformitarianism
. In relation to geological forces it states that the shaping of the Earth has occurred by means of mostly slow-acting forces that can be seen in operation today. By applying these principles, geologists have determined that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old
. They study the lithosphere
of the Earth to gain information on the history of the planet. Geologists divide Earth's history
into eons, eras, periods, epochs
, and faunal stages characterized by well-defined breaks in the fossil record (see Geologic time scale
). In general, there is a lack of any evidence for any of the above effects proposed by flood geologists and their claims of fossil layering are not taken seriously by scientists.
The global flood cannot explain geological formations such as angular unconformities
, where sedimentary rock
s have been tilted and eroded then more sedimentary layers deposited on top, needing long periods of time for these processes. There is also the time needed for the erosion of valleys in sedimentary rock mountains. In another example, the flood, had it occurred, should also have produced large-scale effects spread throughout the entire world. Erosion should be evenly distributed, yet the levels of erosion in, for example, the Appalachians
and the Rocky Mountains
differ significantly.
is the science of determining the absolute
age of rocks, fossils, and sediments by a variety of techniques. These methods indicate that the Earth as a whole is at least 4.5 billion years old, and that the strata that, according to flood geology, were laid down during the Flood some 6,000 years ago, were actually deposited gradually over many millions of years.
in Africa
, this would correspond to an abnormally high density of vertebrates worldwide, close to 2100 per acre.
In addition, carbonate hardgrounds and the fossils associated with them show that the so-called flood sediments include evidence of long hiatuses in deposition that are not consistent with flood dynamics or timing.
s and aragonite sea
s through the Phanerozoic. The cyclical pattern of carbonate hardgrounds
, calcitic and aragonitic ooids, and calcite-shelled fauna has apparently been controlled by seafloor spreading
rates and the flushing of seawater through hydrothermal vent
s which changes its Mg/Ca ratio.
History of geology
The history of geology is concerned with the development of the natural science of geology. Geology is the scientific study of the origin, history, and structure of the Earth. Throughout the ages geology provides essential theories and data that shape how society conceptualizes the...
, even after the Biblical chronology had been rejected by geologists
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
in favour of an ancient Earth. In the contemporary literature, the term 'flood geology' is often taken to be synonymous with young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism is the religious belief that Heavens, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago...
or creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
. Adherents believe the Christian Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
is inerrant and hold its passages to be historically accurate.
Flood geology contradicts the scientific consensus in geology, physics, chemistry, molecular genetics, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and paleontology, and the scientific community considers the subject to be pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
.
The great flood in the history of geology
Many early Christians, including TertullianTertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
, Chrysostom and Augustine), believed that fossils were the remains of animals that were killed and buried during the brief duration of the Flood. The geological peculiarity in northern Europe where much is covered by layers of loam
Loam
Loam is soil composed of sand, silt, and clay in relatively even concentration . Loam soils generally contain more nutrients and humus than sandy soils, have better infiltration and drainage than silty soils, and are easier to till than clay soils...
and gravel
Gravel
Gravel is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule and cobble...
as well as erratic boulders
Glacial erratic
A glacial erratic is a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests. "Erratics" take their name from the Latin word errare, and are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometres...
deposited hundreds of miles from their original sources furthered acceptance of the idea. Early geologists interpreted these features as the result of massive flooding (in the mid 19th century geologists accepted that they had been formed by ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
glaciations). The global flood was associated with massive geographical upheavals, with old continents sinking and new ones rising, thus transforming ancient seabeds into mountain tops.
During the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, significant works were compiled to proffer natural causes for the miracle
Miracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
s recounted in the Bible. Naturalistic
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
explanations for a global flood were proposed in such works as An Essay Toward a Natural History of the Earth (1695) by John Woodward
John Woodward (naturalist)
John Woodward was an English naturalist, antiquarian and geologist, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at Cambridge University...
and New Theory of the Earth (1696) by Woodward’s student William Whiston
William Whiston
William Whiston was an English theologian, historian, and mathematician. He is probably best known for his translation of the Antiquities of the Jews and other works by Josephus, his A New Theory of the Earth, and his Arianism...
.
The modern science of geology
History of geology
The history of geology is concerned with the development of the natural science of geology. Geology is the scientific study of the origin, history, and structure of the Earth. Throughout the ages geology provides essential theories and data that shape how society conceptualizes the...
was founded in Europe in the 18th century. Its practitioners sought to understand the history and shaping of the Earth through the physical evidence found in rocks and minerals. As many early geologists were clergymen, they naturally sought to link the geological history of the world with that set out in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. The ancient theory that fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s were the result of "plastic forces" within the Earth's crust had by this time been abandoned, with the recognition that they represented the remains of once-living creatures. This, though, raised a major problem: how did fossils of sea creatures end up on land, or on the tops of mountains?
By the early 19th century it was already thought that the Earth's lifespan was far longer than that suggested by literal readings of the Bible. (Benoît de Maillet
Benoît de Maillet
Benoît de Maillet was a well-travelled French diplomat and natural historian. He was French consul general at Cairo, and overseer in the Levant...
had estimated an age of 2.4 billion years by 1732 as against the 6,000 years proposed by Archbishop James Ussher
James Ussher
James Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...
's famous chronology). In 1823 the Reverend William Buckland
William Buckland
The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
, the first professor of geology at Oxford University, interpreted geological phenomena as Reliquiae Diluvianae; relics of the flood Attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge. His views were supported by other English clergymen naturalists at the time, including the influential Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...
, but these ideas were disputed by continental geologists and by 1830 Sedgwick was convinced by his own findings that the evidence only showed local floods.
Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
's promotion of James Hutton
James Hutton
James Hutton was a Scottish physician, geologist, naturalist, chemical manufacturer and experimental agriculturalist. He is considered the father of modern geology...
's ideas of uniformitarianism
Uniformitarianism (science)
In the philosophy of naturalism, the uniformitarianism assumption is that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the...
advocated the principle that geological changes that occurred in the past may be understood by studying present-day phenomena. In common with Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, Hutton assumed that the world-system had been in a steady state since the day of creation, but unlike Newton he included in this vision not only the motion of celestial bodies and processes like chemical change on earth, but also processes of geological change. Christopher Kaiser writes:
- In other words, in comparison with Newton's, Hutton's was a higher order concept of the system of nature which included not only the present structure of the world, but the process (or natural history) by which the present structure had come into existence and was maintained. As with Newton, and in contrast to materialists like Buffon and neomechanists like Laplace, the origins of the system were beyond the scope of science for Hutton: in nature itself he found 'no vestige of a beginning - no prospect of an end'. But Hutton came about as close to being a neomechanist as one possibly could without changing the Newtonian framework of God and nature. Only the Newtonian stipulation that God had personally designed the present system of nature stood between natural theology and the retirement of God from science altogether... Like Derham and Cotes, Hutton believed that God had implanted active principles in nature at creation sufficient to account for all its natural functions.
The idea that all geological strata were produced by a single flood was rejected in 1837 by Buckland who wrote:
- Some have attempted to ascribe the formation of all the stratified rocks to the effects of the Mosaic Deluge; an opinion which is irreconcilable with the enormous thickness and almost infinite subdivisions of these strata, and with the numerous and regular successions which they contain of the remains of animals and vegetables, differing more and more widely from existing species, as the strata in which we find them are placed at greater depths. The fact that a large proportion of these remains belong to extinct genera, and almost all of them to extinct species, that lived and multiplied and died on or near the spots where they are now found, shows that the strata in which they occur were deposited slowly and gradually, during long periods of time, and at widely distant intervals.
For a while, Buckland had continued to insist that some geological layers were related to the Great Flood, but grew to accept the idea that they represented multiple inundations which occurred well before humans existed. He was convinced by Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
geologist Louis Agassiz
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...
that much of the evidence on which he relied was in fact the product of ancient ice ages, and became one of the foremost champions of Agassiz's theory of glaciations. Mainstream science abandoned the idea of flood geology that required major deviations from present physical processes.
Reemergence of flood geology
Flood geology was developed as a creationist endeavor in the 20th century by George McCready PriceGeorge McCready Price
George McCready Price was a Canadian creationist. He produced several anti-evolution and creationist works, particularly on the subject of flood geology...
, a Seventh-day Adventist
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...
and amateur geologist who wrote a treatise in 1923 to provide a Seventh-day Adventist perspective on geology. Price's work was subsequently adapted and updated by Henry M. Morris
Henry M. Morris
Henry Madison Morris was an American young earth creationist and Christian apologist. He was one of the founders of the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research...
and John C. Whitcomb, Jr. in their The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M...
in 1961. Whitcomb was motivated after reading The Christian View of Science and Scripture (1954) by theologian Bernard Ramm
Bernard Ramm
Bernard L. Ramm was a Baptist theologian and apologist within the broad Evangelical tradition. He wrote prolifically on topics concerned with biblical hermeneutics, religion and science, Christology, and apologetics...
. Ramm supported the view that scientists who are Christians could come to alternative interpretations to the strict six day creation, as promoted by Price, that are both Biblical and concordant with current scientific evidence. Morris and Whitcomb argued that the Earth was geologically recent, that the Fall of Man had triggered the second law of thermodynamics
Second law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...
, and that the Great Flood had laid down most of the geological strata in the space of a single year.
Ramm's book was supportive of religious and scientific dissent from flood geology. J. Laurence Kulp
J. Laurence Kulp
John Laurence Kulp was a 20th century geochemist. He led major studies on the effects of nuclear fallout and acid rain. He was a prominent advocate in American Scientific Affiliation circles in favor of an Old Earth and against the pseudoscience of flood geology...
, a geologist in fellowship with the Plymouth Brethren
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...
, joined with other Christian geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, and biologists whose work related to radiocarbon dating, to persuade the Christian organization, American Scientific Affiliation
American Scientific Affiliation
The American Scientific Affiliation is a Christian religious organization of scientists and people in science-related disciplines. The stated purpose is "to investigate any area relating Christian faith and science." The organization publishes a journal, Perspectives of Science and Christian Faith...
(ASA), not to officially support or endorse flood geology but to allow members to follow the scientific evidence rather than a literalist interpretation of the Bible. Kulp also wrote a detailed critique of Flood Geology, titled Deluge Geology, which was published in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation in 1950. When the ASA refused to align itself with flood geology, a new generation of Young Earth creationists was founded, many of whom organized themselves around Morris's Institute for Creation Research
Institute for Creation Research
The Institute for Creation Research is a Christian institution in Dallas, Texas that specializes in education, research, and media promotion of Creation Science and Biblical creationism. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as...
. Subsequent research by the Creation Research Society
Creation Research Society
The Creation Research Society is a Christian research group that engages in creation science. The organization has produced various publications, including a journal and a creation-based biology textbook...
has observed and analyzed geological formations, within a flood geology framework, including the La Brea Tar Pits
La Brea Tar Pits
The La Brea Tar Pits are a cluster of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed, in the urban heart of Los Angeles. Asphaltum or tar has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with water...
, the Tavrick Formation (Tauric Formation, Russian: "Tavricheskaya formatsiya") in the Crimean Peninsula and Stone Mountain
Stone Mountain
Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite dome monadnock in Stone Mountain, Georgia, United States. At its summit, the elevation is 1,686 feet amsl and 825 feet above the surrounding area. Stone Mountain granite extends underground at its longest point into Gwinnett County...
, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. In each case, the creationists claimed that the flood geology interpretation had greater explanatory power than the uniformitarian explanation. The Creation Research Society claims that "uniformitarianism is wishful thinking".
The impact on creationism and fundamentalist Christianity of these ideas is considerable. Morris' theories of flood geology are widely promoted around the world, with his books being translated into many languages. Flood geology is still a major theme of modern creationism, though it is rejected by earth scientists
Earth science
Earth science is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences...
.
Biblical basis
Flood geology is based on a literalBiblical literalism
Biblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...
interpretation of the flood narrative in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 6–9). The narrative begins with God's decision to bring a deluge which will wipe out all life on earth except for those to be saved on Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
. In the 600th year of Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
's life God opens the "fountains of the deep" and the "windows of Heaven" and causes rain to fall on the earth for 40 days and nights. The flood increases for 150 days and covers "all the high mountains under heaven," at which point the Ark grounds on the mountains. The waters then retreat for 150 days, the earth dries, and Noah and his family and the animals and birds emerge to re-establish life on earth. (Seeley suggests that the authors of Genesis, like other peoples of the ancient Near East, conceived the earth as a flat, circular disk, floating like a bubble in a limitless expanse of water, with a solid sky (the firmament
Firmament
The firmament is the vault or expanse of the sky. According to Genesis, God created the firmament to separate the oceans from other waters above.-Etymology:...
) separating the dry land inhabited by man from the surrounding waters; when God opens the "windows of heaven" and the "fountains of the Deep", it is these waters which enter and flood the world).
Genesis also contains a chronology which places the Flood in the year 1656 after Creation in the standard Hebrew text (the Masoretic text
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
- other texts have slightly different chronologies). Correlating this with a date in the modern calendar has proven contentious - there have been over two hundred attempts, with outcomes varying from 2304 to 6934 years BC — but modern flood geology attempts to fit geological time within the framework of a "young" Earth
Young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism is the religious belief that Heavens, Earth, and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between 5,700 and 10,000 years ago...
.
Scholars propose that the flood story was written around 550–450 BC as a reworking of the ancient Mesopotamian myth of the flood-hero Utnapishtim
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...
. For the ancient author or authors, the purpose of the story was theological, elevating Hebrew monotheism over Babylonian polytheism. Within the overall narrative of the Genesis, the Flood mirrors, but in reverse, God's creation of "the heavens and the earth" in Genesis 1. That story tells how God creates an Earth which is good, but which becomes corrupted with violence, until in Genesis 6 he decides to destroy all life. He does this by opening the "windows of the firmament" and the "fountains of the Deep" and allowing the waters of the cosmos in. The chronology of the Flood replicates the chronology of the seven days of Creation: it begins in the second month, equivalent to the second day of Creation, the day on which the firmament was created; the waters then rise for 150 days (five months of 30 days each), until at the end of six months (equivalent to the six days of creative work in Genesis 1) the ark grounds on the highest mountain peak. (To underline the point, Noah's name means "rest" in Hebrew). After a month of rest (the equivalent of the seventh day of the Creation story), the waters recede for 150 days/five months as the world is "re-created": in the sixth month Noah waits, and in the seventh he and the animals exit the ark and give thanks to God.
Belief in a global Flood and a 6000 year history for the Earth had been largely abandoned by the mid-19th century. Their revival and rapid growth in the United States can be dated to the early 20th century, including, in a contemporary form, by Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis is a non-profit Christian apologetics ministry with a particular focus on supporting Young Earth creationism and a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. The organization has offices in the United Kingdom and the United States...
:
The debate about the age of the earth is ultimately a question of whose word we are going to trust: the all-knowing truthful Creator who has given us His inerrant book (the Bible) or finite, sinful creatures who give us their books that contain errors and therefore are frequently revised. If you firmly trust and carefully read the Bible and become informed on creationist interpretations of the geological record, you can easily see how the rocks of the earth powerfully confirm the Bible’s teaching, both about Noah’s Flood and a young earth.
Fossils
The geologic column and the fossilFossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
record are used as major pieces of evidence in the modern scientific explanation of the development and evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of life on Earth as well as a means to establish the age of the Earth
Age of the Earth
The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples...
. Young Earth Creationists such as Morris and Whitcomb in their 1961 book, The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M...
, deny that the fossil record in the geologic column represents the evolution of life on earth over millions of years. The age of the fossils depends on the amount of time credited to the geologic column, which they ascribe to be about one year. Some flood geologists dispute geology's assembled global geologic column since index fossils are used to link geographically isolated strata to other strata across the map. Fossils are often dated by their proximity to strata containing index fossils whose age has been determined by its location on the geologic column. Oard and others say that the identification of fossils as index fossils has been too error prone for index fossils to be used reliably to make those correlations, or to date local strata using the assembled geologic scale.
Other creationists accept the existence of the geological column and believe that it indicates a sequence of events that might have occurred during the global flood. This is the approach taken by Institute for Creation Research
Institute for Creation Research
The Institute for Creation Research is a Christian institution in Dallas, Texas that specializes in education, research, and media promotion of Creation Science and Biblical creationism. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as...
creationists such as Andrew Snelling, Steven A. Austin and Kurt Wise
Kurt Wise
Kurt Patrick Wise is an American young earth creationist who serves as the Director of Creation Research Center at Truett-McConnell College. He has a PhD in geology from Harvard University.-Biography:...
, as well as Creation Ministries International. They cite the Cambrian explosion
Cambrian explosion
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, around , of most major phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record, accompanied by major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes...
— the appearance of abundant fossils in the upper Ediacaran
Ediacaran
The Ediacaran Period , named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia, is the last geological period of the Neoproterozoic Era and of the Proterozoic Eon, immediately preceding the Cambrian Period, the first period of the Paleozoic Era and of the Phanerozoic Eon...
(Vendian) Period and lower Cambrian Period — as the pre-Flood/Flood boundary, the presence in such sediments of fossils that do not occur later in the geological record as part of a pre–flood biota that perished and the absence of fossilized organisms that appear later, such as angiosperms and mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s, as due to erosion of sediments deposited by the flood as waters receded off the land. Creationists say that fossilization can only take place when the organism is buried quickly to protect the remains from destruction by scavengers or decomposition They say that the fossil record is evidence of a single cataclysmic flood and not the record of a series of slow changes accumulating over millions of years.
Flood geologists have proposed numerous hypotheses to reconcile the sequence of fossils evident in the fossil column with the literal account of Noah's flood in the Bible. Whitcomb and Morris proposed three possible factors. One is hydrological, wherein the relative buoyancies of the remains based on the organisms' shapes and densities determined the sequence in which their remains settled to the bottom of the flood waters. The second factor they proposed was ecological, suggesting organisms living at the ocean bottom succumbed first in the flood and those living at the highest altitudes last. The third factor was anatomical and behavioral, the ordered sequence in the fossil column resulting from the very different responses to the rising waters between different kinds of organisms due to their diverse mobilities and original habitats. In a scenario put forth by Morris, the remains of marine life were the first to settle to the bottom, followed by the slower moving lowland reptiles, and culminating with mankind whose superior intelligence and ability to flee enabled them to reach higher elevations before they were overcome by the flood waters.
Some creationists believe that oil
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
and coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
deposits formed rapidly in sedimentary layers as volcanoes or flood waters flattened forests and buried the debris. They believe the vegetation decomposed rapidly into oil or coal due to the heat of the subterranean waters as they were unleashed from the Earth during the flood or by the high temperatures created as the remains were compressed by water and sediment.
Creationists
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
continue to search for evidence in the natural world that they consider to be consistent with the above description, such as evidence of rapid formation. For example, there have been claims of raindrop marks and water ripples at layer boundaries, sometimes associated with the claimed fossilized footprints of men and dinosaurs walking together. Such footprint evidence has been debunked by scientists and some have been shown to be fakes.
Widespread flood stories
While it is not geological evidence, believers in Flood Geology also point out that flood stories can be found in many cultures, places, and religions; this, they suggest, is evidence of an actual event in the historic past because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories.Anthropologists generally reject this view and highlight the fact that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts, where unusually severe floods can be expected to occur occasionally and will be recorded in tribal mythology. Geologists William Ryan and Walter C. Pitman, III
Walter C. Pitman, III
Walter Clarkson Pitman, III is a geophysicist and a professor emeritus at Columbia University. His measurements of magnetic anomalies on the ocean floor supported the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis explaining seafloor spreading. With William Ryan, he developed the Black Sea deluge theory...
have suggested that the rapid filling of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
(c. 7000 BC) at the end of the last Ice Age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
may be responsible for the flood myths in the Near East. Newer evidence suggests that if there was a flood it was much smaller than Ryan and Pitman thought it had been.
Runaway subduction
In the last two decades, most proposed flood mechanisms involve "runaway subductionSubduction
In geology, subduction is the process that takes place at convergent boundaries by which one tectonic plate moves under another tectonic plate, sinking into the Earth's mantle, as the plates converge. These 3D regions of mantle downwellings are known as "Subduction Zones"...
", the rapid movement of tectonic plates
Tectonic Plates
Tectonic Plates is a 1992 independent Canadian film directed by Peter Mettler. Mettler also wrote the screenplay based on the play by Robert Lepage. The film stars Marie Gignac, Céline Bonnier and Robert Lepage.-Plot summary:...
, in one form or another.
One specific form of runaway subduction is called "catastrophic plate tectonics", proposed by geophysicist John Baumgardner
John Baumgardner
John R. Baumgardner is a geophysicist, young earth creationist, intelligent design supporter and Christian fundamentalist.-Biography:He became a Christian at 26 and has tried to prove the Deluge myth scientifically ever since, creating a computer program called Terra to model the flood...
and supported by the Institute for Creation Research
Institute for Creation Research
The Institute for Creation Research is a Christian institution in Dallas, Texas that specializes in education, research, and media promotion of Creation Science and Biblical creationism. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as...
and Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis is a non-profit Christian apologetics ministry with a particular focus on supporting Young Earth creationism and a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. The organization has offices in the United Kingdom and the United States...
. This holds the rapid plunge of former oceanic plates into the mantle
Mantle (geology)
The mantle is a part of a terrestrial planet or other rocky body large enough to have differentiation by density. The interior of the Earth, similar to the other terrestrial planets, is chemically divided into layers. The mantle is a highly viscous layer between the crust and the outer core....
caused by an unknown trigger mechanism which increased local mantle pressures to the point that its viscosity dropped several magnitudes according to known properties of mantle silicates. Once initiated, sinking plates caused the spread of low viscosity throughout the mantle resulting in runaway mantle convection and catastrophic tectonic motion as continents were dragged across the surface of the earth. Once the former ocean plates, which are thought to be denser than the mantle, reached the bottom of the mantle an equilibrium was reached. Pressures dropped, viscosity increased, runaway mantle convection stopped, leaving the surface of the earth rearranged. Proponents point to subducted slabs in the mantle which are still relatively cool, which they regard as evidence that they have not been there for millions of years of temperature equilibration.
Catastrophic plate tectonics is also associated with the creationist theory that the Earth's magnetic field reversed direction many times in rapid succession during the year-long global flood.
The hypothesis of catastrophic plate tectonics is considered pseudoscience and is rejected by the vast majority of geologists in favor of the conventional geological theory of plate tectonics
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...
. It has been argued that the tremendous release of energy necessitated by such an event would boil off the Earth's oceans, making a global flood impossible. Not only does catastrophic plate tectonics lack any plausible geophysical
Geophysics
Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...
mechanism by which its changes might occur, it also is contradicted by considerable geological evidence (which is in turn consistent with conventional plate tectonics), including:
- The fact that a number of volcanic oceanic island chains, such as the Hawaiian islandsHawaiian IslandsThe Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...
, yield evidence of the ocean floor having moved over volcanic hot spotsHotspot (geology)The places known as hotspots or hot spots in geology are volcanic regions thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the mantle elsewhere. They may be on, near to, or far from tectonic plate boundaries. There are two hypotheses to explain them...
. These islands have widely ranging ages (determined via both radiometric datingRadiometric datingRadiometric dating is a technique used to date materials such as rocks, usually based on a comparison between the observed abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope and its decay products, using known decay rates...
and relative erosionErosionErosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
) that contradict the catastrophic tectonic hypothesis of rapid development and thus a similar age. - Radiometric dating and sedimentationSedimentationSedimentation is the tendency for particles in suspension to settle out of the fluid in which they are entrained, and come to rest against a barrier. This is due to their motion through the fluid in response to the forces acting on them: these forces can be due to gravity, centrifugal acceleration...
rates on the ocean floor likewise contradict the hypothesis that it all came into existence nearly contemporaneously. - Catastrophic tectonics does not allow sufficient time for guyotGuyotA guyot , also known as a tablemount, is an isolated underwater volcanic mountain , with a flat top over 200 meters below the surface of the sea. The diameters of these flat summits can exceed ....
s to have their peak eroded away (leaving these seamountSeamountA seamount is a mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach to the water's surface , and thus is not an island. These are typically formed from extinct volcanoes, that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from a seafloor of depth. They are defined by oceanographers as...
s' characteristic flat tops). - Runaway subduction does not explain the kind of continental collisionContinental collisionContinental collision is a phenomenon of the plate tectonics of Earth that occurs at convergent boundaries. Continental collision is a variation on the fundamental process of subduction, whereby the subduction zone is destroyed, mountains produced, and two continents sutured together...
illustrated by that of the Indian and Eurasian PlateEurasian PlateThe Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia , with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Chersky Range in East Siberia...
s. (For further information see OrogenyOrogenyOrogeny refers to forces and events leading to a severe structural deformation of the Earth's crust due to the engagement of tectonic plates. Response to such engagement results in the formation of long tracts of highly deformed rock called orogens or orogenic belts...
.)
Conventional plate tectonics accounts for the geological evidence already, including innumerable details that catastrophic plate tectonics cannot, such as why there is gold in California, silver in Nevada, salt flats in Utah, and coal in Pennsylvania, without requiring any extraordinary mechanisms to do so.
Vapor/water canopy
Isaac Vail (1840–1912), a Quaker schoolteacher, in his 1912 work The Earth's Annular System, extrapolated from the nebular hypothesis what he called the annular system of earth history, with the earth being originally surrounded by rings resembling those of Saturn, or canopies of water vaporWater vapor
Water vapor or water vapour , also aqueous vapor, is the gas phase of water. It is one state of water within the hydrosphere. Water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from the sublimation of ice. Under typical atmospheric conditions, water vapor is continuously...
. These were hypothesised to have, one by one, collapsed on the earth, resulting in a "succession of stupendous cataclysms, separated by unknown periods of time" burying fossils. The Genesis flood was thought to have been caused by "the last remnant" of this vapor. Although this final flood was geologically significant, it was hypothesized to account for far less of the fossil record than George McCready Price
George McCready Price
George McCready Price was a Canadian creationist. He produced several anti-evolution and creationist works, particularly on the subject of flood geology...
attributed to it.
This hypothesis gained a following among Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
and from Seventh-day Adventist
Seventh-day Adventist Church
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...
physicist Robert W. Woods, before being given prominent and repeated mention in The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood
The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications is a 1961 book by young earth creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M...
in 1961.
Though the vapor canopy theory has fallen into disfavour among most creationists, recent defences of the theory have been attempted by Dillow and Vardiman.
Modern geology and flood geology
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community
Scientific community
The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
. Modern geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
relies on a number of established principles, one of the most important of which is Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
's principle of uniformitarianism
Uniformitarianism (science)
In the philosophy of naturalism, the uniformitarianism assumption is that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the...
. In relation to geological forces it states that the shaping of the Earth has occurred by means of mostly slow-acting forces that can be seen in operation today. By applying these principles, geologists have determined that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old
Age of the Earth
The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples...
. They study the lithosphere
Lithosphere
The lithosphere is the rigid outermost shell of a rocky planet. On Earth, it comprises the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of thousands of years or greater.- Earth's lithosphere :...
of the Earth to gain information on the history of the planet. Geologists divide Earth's history
History of Earth
The history of the Earth describes the most important events and fundamental stages in the development of the planet Earth from its formation 4.578 billion years ago to the present day. Nearly all branches of natural science have contributed to the understanding of the main events of the Earth's...
into eons, eras, periods, epochs
Epoch (geology)
An epoch is a subdivision of the geologic timescale based on rock layering. In order, the higher subdivisions are periods, eras and eons. We are currently living in the Holocene epoch...
, and faunal stages characterized by well-defined breaks in the fossil record (see Geologic time scale
Geologic time scale
The geologic time scale provides a system of chronologic measurement relating stratigraphy to time that is used by geologists, paleontologists and other earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth...
). In general, there is a lack of any evidence for any of the above effects proposed by flood geologists and their claims of fossil layering are not taken seriously by scientists.
Erosion
Unconformity
An unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger, but the term is used to describe...
, where sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....
s have been tilted and eroded then more sedimentary layers deposited on top, needing long periods of time for these processes. There is also the time needed for the erosion of valleys in sedimentary rock mountains. In another example, the flood, had it occurred, should also have produced large-scale effects spread throughout the entire world. Erosion should be evenly distributed, yet the levels of erosion in, for example, the Appalachians
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
and the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
differ significantly.
Geochronology
GeochronologyGeochronology
Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments, within a certain degree of uncertainty inherent to the method used. A variety of dating methods are used by geologists to achieve this, and schemes of classification and terminology have been proposed...
is the science of determining the absolute
Absolute dating
Absolute dating is the process of determining an approximate computed age in archaeology and geology. Some scientists prefer the terms chronometric or calendar dating, as use of the word "absolute" implies an unwarranted certainty and precision...
age of rocks, fossils, and sediments by a variety of techniques. These methods indicate that the Earth as a whole is at least 4.5 billion years old, and that the strata that, according to flood geology, were laid down during the Flood some 6,000 years ago, were actually deposited gradually over many millions of years.
Paleontology
If the flood were responsible for fossilization, then all the animals now fossilized must have been living together on the Earth just before the flood. Based on estimates of the number of remains buried in the Karoo fossil formationKaroo Supergroup
The Karoo Supergroup is the largest stratigraphic unit in Southern Africa, covering almost two thirds of the present land surface, including central Cape Province, almost all of Orange Free State, western Natal, much of south-east Transvaal, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi...
in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, this would correspond to an abnormally high density of vertebrates worldwide, close to 2100 per acre.
Geochemistry
Proponents of Flood Geology also have a difficult time explaining the alternation between calcite seaCalcite sea
A calcite sea is one in which low-magnesium calcite is the primary inorganic marine calcium carbonate precipitate. An aragonite sea is the alternate seawater chemistry in which aragonite and high-magnesium calcite are the primary inorganic carbonate precipitates...
s and aragonite sea
Aragonite sea
An aragonite sea contains aragonite and high-magnesium calcite as the primary inorganic carbonate precipitates. Therefore, the chemical conditions of the seawater must be notably high in magnesium content for an aragonite sea to form...
s through the Phanerozoic. The cyclical pattern of carbonate hardgrounds
Carbonate hardgrounds
Carbonate hardgrounds are surfaces of synsedimentarily cemented carbonate layers that have been exposed on the seafloor . A hardground is essentially, then, a lithified seafloor. Ancient hardgrounds are found in limestone sequences and distinguished from later-lithified sediments by evidence of...
, calcitic and aragonitic ooids, and calcite-shelled fauna has apparently been controlled by seafloor spreading
Seafloor spreading
Seafloor spreading is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics....
rates and the flushing of seawater through hydrothermal vent
Hydrothermal vent
A hydrothermal vent is a fissure in a planet's surface from which geothermally heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspots. Hydrothermal vents exist because the earth is both...
s which changes its Mg/Ca ratio.
See also
- BaraminologyBaraminologyBaraminology is a creationist taxonomic system that classifies animals into groups called "created kinds" or "baramins" according to the account of creation in the book of Genesis and other parts of the Bible. It claims that kinds cannot interbreed and have no evolutionary relationship to one another...
- Creation biology
- International Conference on CreationismInternational Conference on CreationismThe International Conference on Creationism is a quadrennial conference in support of young earth creationism, sponsored by the Creation Science Fellowship . The first conference occurred in 1986 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Subsequent conferences have been held in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2003...
- Pre-AdamitePre-AdamitePre-Adamite hypothesis or Preadamism is the religious belief that humans existed before Adam, the first human being named in the Bible. This belief has a long history, probably having its origins in early pagan responses to Abrahamic claims regarding the origins of the human race.Advocates of this...
- Polystrate fossilPolystrate fossilA Polystrate fossil is a fossil of a single organism that extends through more than one geological stratum. Entire "fossil forests" of such upright fossil tree trunks and stumps have been found worldwide, i.e. in the Eastern United States, Eastern Canada, England, France, Germany, and Australia,...
- Searches for Noah's ArkSearches for Noah's ArkFrom at least the time of Eusebius to the present day, the search for the physical remains of Noah's Ark has held a fascination for many people...
- Scriptural geologist
Further reading
- H. Neuville, “On the Extinction of the Mammoth,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1919.
- Patten, Donald W. The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch (Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing Company, 1966).
- Patten, Donald W. Catastrophism and the Old Testament (Seattle: Pacific Meridian Publishing Company, 1988). ISBN 0880702915
Flood geology sites
- Global Flood — John BaumgardnerJohn BaumgardnerJohn R. Baumgardner is a geophysicist, young earth creationist, intelligent design supporter and Christian fundamentalist.-Biography:He became a Christian at 26 and has tried to prove the Deluge myth scientifically ever since, creating a computer program called Terra to model the flood...
's work related to the Genesis flood - Geology Questions and Answers Page, Answers in GenesisAnswers in GenesisAnswers in Genesis is a non-profit Christian apologetics ministry with a particular focus on supporting Young Earth creationism and a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. The organization has offices in the United Kingdom and the United States...
- Center for Scientific Creation of Walt BrownWalt Brown (creationist)Walter T. Brown is an American engineer and young earth creationist , who is the director of his own ministry called the Center for Scientific Creation. According to his self-published book, Brown has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a B.S...
, featuring his 'Hydroplate Theory' - Biblical Evidence for the Universality of the Genesis Flood - Richard M. Davidson - John Nevin Andrews Professor of Old Testament Interpretation - Old Testament Department - Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan
Sites critical of flood geology
- Answers In Creation — Old earth creationist website explaining the problems of young earth flood geology
- Flood Geology at the TalkOrigins ArchiveTalkOrigins ArchiveThe TalkOrigins Archive is a website that presents mainstream science perspectives on the antievolution claims of young-earth, old-earth, and "intelligent design" creationists...
- History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth, adapted from the book The Biblical Flood by Davis A. Young, ISBN 0-8028-0719-4