Scientific Evidence for a Worldwide Flood
Part Four of a Five-Part Series on The Age of the Earth.
Two Vastly Different World Views, with Vastly Different Conclusions:
Let's not kid ourselves. What this is all about is whether or not the Old Testament book of Genesis (along with the rest of the Old Testament, and the New Testament) is an accurate account of what happened around 4600 years ago with regard to a worldwide flood, and about 6000 years ago, with regard to Creation itself.Was virtually all of the sedimentary strata laid down by a single Worldwide Deluge in a short amount of time, or is the evolutionary scenario of slow change, acting over eons of T-I-M-E, and the associated Geological Time Chart (with its millions and millions of years) a more accurate account of Earth history?
It's also about God's future judgment of mankind. That's because Jesus Christ, Himself, related the Great Flood of Noah's day to His own return to earth to reign over it and the people in it. See Luke 17:20-27, 19:11-27; John 5:22-23, 12:32, and Rev. 20:4-15.
Let's Look at the Evidence:
The following are 18 Evidences of either massive flooding and erosion, extremely rapid layering of strata, or direct evidence of a Worldwide Flood. Such evidences are found in numerous places on virtually every Continent.Polystrate Fossils:
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for a worldwide flood is the existence of what Rupke termed "polystrate fossils." Such fossils are found all over the world. They usually consist of fossil trees that were buried upright, and which often traverse multiple layers of strata such as sandstone, limestone, shale, and even coal beds. 1,2,3,4 They range in size from small rootlets to trees over 80 feet long. 3 Sometimes they are oblique in relation to the surrounding strata, but more often they are perpendicular to it. For example, at Joggins, Nova Scotia, polystrate tree (and root) fossils are found at various intervals throughout roughly 2,500 feet of strata. Many of these are from 10-20 feet long, 5,6 and, at least one was 40 feet long. 5,6,7Very few of these upright fossil trees have attached roots, and only about 1 in 50 8 have both roots and rootlets attached. Such trees, and their -- more often than not -- missing roots, are discussed in much more detail in The "Fossil Forests" of Nova Scotia. 9 Likewise, many (if not most) of the large, fragmented, and broken-off Stigmaria roots are also missing their rootlets. 9
Many of these roots and rootlets, are also buried individually. 9 This strongly suggests that these trees did not grow in the same places where they were buried, but rather were uprooted and re-deposited there.Similar circumstances occur at various other places in Nova Scotia, as well as in the United States, England, Germany, and France. Another place where large tree stumps are preserved without their roots attached is Axel Heiberg 10,11 Island in Northern Canada.
And although there is much data on buried trees in the geological literature, most of it is over 100 years old, and difficult to access. One of the few articles on this subject was by Rupke, and in it he comments that:
“Personally, I am of the opinion that the polystrate fossils constitute a crucial phenomenon both to the actuality and the mechanism of cataclysmic deposition. Curiously a paper on polystrate fossils appears to be a 'black swan’ in geological literature. Antecedent to this synopsis a systematic discussion of the relevant phenomena was never published. However, geologists must have been informed about these fossils. In view of this it seems unintelligible that uniformitarianism has kept its dominant position." 12
With regard to Rupke's observation, I suspect the reason why such is (still) the case has more to do with one's personal bias against the concept of a Creator / God to whom we might very well have to give account than to the ever-mounting evidence against the theory of evolution and the millions of years old Earth that it requires (to appear plausible). However, T-I-M-E is simply not enough: not even BILLIONS of years of it.
See also The Organic Levels of the Yellowstone Petrified Forest 13 and The Yellowstone Petrified "Forests" 14 by Harold Coffin.
The Fossils Themselves:
Fossils don't form on lake bottoms today, nor are they found forming on the bottom of the sea. 15 Instead, they normally only form when a plant or animal is buried soon after it dies. 16 Therefore, the fossils themselves are evidence of a catastrophe such as a flood or volcanic eruption that took place in the past. See also Rapid Petrification of Wood, by Andrew Snelling.Clastic Dikes: According to Austin, a clastic dike is "a cross cutting body of sedimentary material which has been intruded into a foreign rock mass." 17
"These dikes...(may) penetrate horizontal sedimentary strata (or) they may occur... in igneous and metamorphic rocks. The process of formation of a clastic dike is analogous to wet sand oozing up between ones toes, but on a much larger scale." 17Clastic dikes present a problem to the "mythions of years" mindset of evolution in that massive "older" sediments are found intruding up into overlying younger strata. This must have occurred while the "older" sediments were still in a plastic state.
What took these "older" sediments so long to become hard?One would think that a million years would be more than enough time to turn massive sand laden sediments into sandstone, yet we have an example of sediments which are said to be 80 million years older than those above them, and yet they still had not become hard, but were in a wet and plastic state when an earth movement caused them to be forced up into the (supposedly much) "younger" sediments. Such things not only present serious problems for the evolutionary method of "dating", but also tell us that something is wrong with the millions of years mindset of evolutionary theory itself, and thus cause strongly suspicion that we are not being told the truth by the mass media, nor the "Scientific" community of believers in evolution. 17,18,19
Mt. St. Helens:
Three separate eruptions produced sedimentary-type layers hundreds of feet thick. One of these was a hurricane velocity deposit that produced thousands of thin laminations up to 25 feet thick 10,11,12 The third eruption was a lava flow, which turned into a hot mud-flow as it crossed the Toutle River. This hot mud flow not only diverted the river, but carved a 17 mile long series of canyons (up to 140 feet deep) in a matter of hours. They call it the Little Grand Canyon of the Toutle River." 20,21,22 And to this very day, the neither the mass media, nor any popular "science" publications have told the public what happened. 23 For more on this see Mt. St. Helens: Evidence in Support of Biblical Catastrophe.Palouse Canyon:
In Eastern Washington State there is a canyon that was eroded through solid basalt by Lake Missoula floods in 1-2 days. This canyon is 300 to 500 feet deep. See references below for more information. 24,25,26,27,28Observations at an Australian Beach:
At Greenmount Beach on the Gold Coast of Queensland, an interesting thing occurred: "clear laminations, or layering, in the sand--formed by the separation of normal silica-sand grains and smaller, denser mineral sand-grains such as rutile which are dark in color.. The layering was present along the whole sand mass exposed." 29 Emphasis Added"This was produced as a result of a beach restoration project (which involved) the dredging of sand from (a) sand bar (on) the Tweed River and carrying it by ship several kilometres north to the southern Gold Coast beaches, where it was pumped ashore as a water/sand slurry through a large pipe to the beach." 29 See also Talking About Geology / Varves. 30 Emphasis Added
Spontaneous Sorting of Layers:
Laboratory experiments have shown that spontaneous sorting and layering occurs with a sand, mud and clay slurry. When the mixture slows down, the sand, mud and clay will spontaneously precipitate (settle out) and form individual layers. Dr. Guy Berthault has performed a number of experiments which demonstrate this. 31,32,33 Those who wish to see for themselves, may do so by simply ordering one of the following videos : Evolution: Fact or Belief? Or Experiments in Stratification.Turbidity Currents:
A turbidity current is an underwater mud flow, the discovery of which caused somewhat of a revolution in geology. As a result, many sedimentary strata layers throughout the world have been reevaluated and found to be turbidites. 34,35,36,37,38,39,40For example, regarding turbidites and the impact they are having on modern Geology, Kurt Howard, 41 said the following in his paper on this topic:
My physical geology professor said, "Regarding uniformitarianism, you can take it with a grain of salt." After reviewing geology texts on the subject of turbidites, I am following the courageous professor's advice. To paraphrase his words, I am taking uniformitarianism with a grain of sand, for the philosophy of uniformitarianism states that sedimentary layers form over many millions of years, while ... recent research has shown that turbidites form within a few hours. {1} Emphasis Added
In 1972 Burgert identified several lower basal Tapeats units as turbidites in Grand Canyon's Cheops Bay. Dr. Ariel Roth a geologist at Loma Linda University's Geoscience Institute, suggested that 30% of all sedimentary rocks in Grand Canyon are turbidites. Some geologists suggest that 50% of the world's sedimentary rocks might be turbidites. Emphasis Added
Modern geologists discarded the terms flysch sediments and geosyncline because rapidly formed megathick flysch is incompatible with uniformitarianism and long ages. However, in the last few years, the number of geologists abandoning the classical uniformitarian discipline and adopting the new catastrophism is almost a shock to ... creationists. Geologists are finally beginning to grudgingly agree with ... creationists about the nature of the stratigraphic record, which is a record of major catastrophic events and not the slow year-by-year buildup suggested by uniformitarianism. Flysch deposits might be the sedimentary results of a global flood. The idea of geosynclines is unpopular because most geologists believe in plate tectonics. Emphasis Added
Extensive Strata and Pancake Layering:
As we observe sedimentary strata throughout the world we see almost everywhere flat-lying (or "pancake") layered strata. Many of these layers are so extensive that they cover several states. Evolutionists believe that such layers were deposited slowly over millions and millions of years, or that they are simply "river" deposits or river deltas. 42,43 Creationists, and a growing number of geologists see problems with such interpretations. 44,45 First because there is virtually no evidence of erosion between the layers, and second, because the sheer size and extent of the strata suggests that the layers were neither formed by rivers, or river deltas. That's because many of the "layers" are quite thick, and cover (literally) hundreds and even thousands of square miles, and in many instances are the size of the state of Utah, or even larger.This, coupled with the presence of marine fossils that are buried in many of the layers, tells us that they were deposited by ocean currents (i.e. from a major, major Flood), like nothing we have ever seen before.
We can say for certain that it was the ocean (as opposed to a lake) because of the marine fossils that are buried in much of this strata. For example, in the Grand Canyon area itself, old Earth geologists have said that the Ocean swept over the whole area on six different occasions. Young Earth geologists say it was probably only once.
A "Whale" of a Fossil:
Or should we say "a fossil of a whale? It's true, but what is most interesting about it is how it was buried. In 1976, workers from the Dicalite division of Grefco inc. found the remains of a baleen whale entombed vertically in a diatomaceous earth quarry."They've found fossils there before; in fact the machinery operators have learned a good deal about them and carefully annotate any they find with the name of the collector, the date, and the exact place found. Each discovery is turned over to Lawrence G. Barnes at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The Whale, however, is one of the largest fossils ever collected anywhere... (It) is standing on end.. and is being exposed gradually as the diatomite is mined. Only the head and a small part of the body are visible as yet."The modern baleen whale is 80 to 90 feet long and has a head of similar size, indicating that the fossil may be close to 80 feet long. 46,47
More Fossil Whales:
"In bogs covering glacial deposits in Michigan, skeletons of two whales were discovered ... How did they come to Michigan in the post-glacial epoch? Glaciers do not carry whales, and the ice sheet would not have brought them to the middle of a continent... Was there a sea in Michigan after the glacial epoch, only a few thousand years ago?" 48"Bones of Whale have been found 440 feet above sea level, north of Lake Ontario; a skeleton of another whale was discovered in Vermont, more than 500 feet above sea level; and still another in the Montreal-Quebec area, about 600 feet above sea level..." 48
Marine Fossils In The Mountains:
In Mountains all over the world one can find sea shells and other marine fossils. These include the Sierras, the Swiss Alps, the Himalayas and many more. 49,50,51,52,53 For more on this subject see the following video 54 by Dr. Walter Brown.Frozen Mammoths:
Frozen mammoths and Mammoth bones are found in large numbers in Siberia, Alaska, and Northern Europe. Some of these were in such good preservation that Eskimos would feed their dogs meat from them when they became exposed due to melting ice and snow: that is, if wolves didn't get their first. For those who want to know more see: Frozen Mammoths.Fissures In The Rocks:
In caves and fissures in England and Whales and all over western Europe are found bones and bone fragments of many types of extinct and extant animal species -- including the mammoth, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, horse, polar bear, bison, reindeer, wolf and cave lion. In virtually every case, the bones are disarticulated, without teeth marks, un-weathered, and in most cases broken and splintered. 55"In the rock on the summit of Mont de Sautenay -- a flat-topped hill near Chalonsur-Saone between Dijon and Lyons -- there is a fissure filled with animal bones. 'Why should so many wolves, bears, horses, and oxen have ascended a hill isolated on all sides?' asked Albert Gaudry, professor at the Jardin des Plantes. According to him, the bones in this cleft are mostly broken and splintered into innumerable... fragments and are 'evidently not those of animals devoured by beasts of prey; nor have they been broken by man. Nevertheless, the remains of wolf were ... abundant, together with those of cave lion, bear, rhinoceros, horse, ox, and deer... Prestwich thought that the animal bones... were found in common heaps because, '... [they] had fled [there] to escape the rising waters.'" 55,56
Erratic Boulders:
All over Europe and North America are found extremely large "boulders" which were transported many miles by some mysterious force -- the most likely of which is a massive flood that swept over the Continents. Concerning these Velikovsky writes :
"Some erratics are enormous. The block near Conway, New Hampshire, is 90 by 40 by 38 feet and weighs about 10,000 tons, the load of a large cargo ship. Equally large is Mohegan Rock, which towers over the town of Montville, in Connecticut. The great flat erratic in Warren County, Ohio, weighs approximately 13,500 tons and covers three quarters of an acre; the Ototoks erratic, thirty miles south of Calgary, Alberta, consists of two pieces of quartzite 'derived from at least 50 miles to the west,' [and weighs] over 18,000 tons." 57
Was the Flood Local or Worldwide?
In the late 60's and early 70's:"Two American oceanographic vessels pulled from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico several long, slender cores of sediment. Included in them were the shells of tiny one-celled planktonic organisms called foraminifera. While living on the surface, these organisms lock into their shells a chemical record of the temperature and salinity of the water. When they reproduce, the shells are discarded and drop to the bottom. A cross-section of that bottom ... carries a record of climates that may go back more than 100 million years. Every inch of core may represent as much as 1000 years of the earth's past." 58 Emphasis Added
"The cores were analyzed in two separate investigations, by Cesare Emiliani of the University of Miami, and James Kennett of the University of Rhode Island and Nicholas Shackleton of Cambridge University. Both analyses indicated a dramatic change in salinity, providing compelling evidence of a vast flood of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico. Using radiocarbon, geochemist Jerry Stripp of the University of Miami dated the flood at about 11,600 years ago." 1 To Emiliani, all the questions and arguments are minor beside the single fact that a vast amount of fresh melt water poured into the Gulf of Mexico. 'We know this,' he says, 'because the oxygen isotope ratios of the foraminifera shells show a marked temporary decrease in the salinity of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It clearly shows that there was a major period of flooding from 12,000 to 10,000 years ago... There was no question that there was a flood and there is no question that it was a universal flood. 58 Emphasis Added"Emiliani's findings are corroborated by geologists Kennett and Shackleton, who concluded that there was a 'massive inpouring of glacial melt water into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River system. At the time of maximum inpouring of this water, surface salinities were... reduced by about ten percent." 58
The Black Sea Speaks:"Science... has found evidence for a massive deluge that may ... have inspired Noah's tale. About 7,500 years ago, a flood poured ten cubic miles of water a day -- 130 times more than flows over Niagara Falls - from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, abruptly turning the formerly freshwater lake into a brackish inland sea." 59 Emphasis Added
"In 1993, William Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory dug up cores of sediment from the bottom of the Black sea. The cores showed that the sea's outer margins had once been dry land, indicating it had been two-thirds its present size. Furthermore, over the entire sea bottom was a thin, uniform layer of sediment that could only have been deposited during a flood. The researchers also found that within that layer saltwater mollusks appear, all from the Mediterranean and all dating from around 7600 years ago." 59 Emphasis Added
Miracle or Worldwide Flood?60 Emphasis Added"Such a hypothesis would require assumption of a highly unlikely pattern of faunal migrations, where swarms of species of Manticoceras are followed, everywhere at the same distance and the same time interval, by swarms of species of Cheiloceras, the two waves preserving their separate identities on a staggered mass migration around the world ... without evolutionary changes and without ever becoming mixed..."
"It would be easy to repeat this investigation for almost every critical zone fossil or fauna throughout the geological column for hundreds, perhaps thousands of... cases. The conclusions would be the same. In the words of Jeletsky (1956) we would have to 'invoke a miracle', if, for example, we were to assume anything but world-wide contemporaneous deposition for each of the 55 ammonite zones of the Jurassic. Not all of them occur everywhere, but wherever two or more are found in superposition they occur in the same order. 60 Arkell (1957, p. L112) 61 summarized the picture of ... Mesozoic ammonoids as follows: Emphasis Added
'Evolution is above all very uneven. Certain periods were outstandingly productive of new and verile forms which often seem to have sprung into existence from nowhere ... and to have become dominant almost simultaneously over a large part of the world ...
How such sudden multiple creations were brought about is a task for the future to determine.'" 60,61 Emphasis added
"I regard the failure to find
a clear 'vector of
progress' in life's
history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record."
Worldwide
Chaos and Out of Order Fossils:
The following excerpts provide further
evidence that something is amiss with the Geological Time Chart and the
associated Theory of Evolution itself.
62
And that:
"Heretofore, we have thrown up our hands
in frustration at the lack of expected pattern in
life's history -- or we have sought to impose
a pattern that
we hoped
to find on
a world that does not really display it...
If we can develop
a...theory of mass extinction,
we may finally understand why life has thwarted our expectations, and...extract
an unexpected ... pattern
from apparent chaos."
62
Stephen
Jay Gould
Emphasis
added.
"One of the ironies of the evolution-creation debate is that the creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and orderly progression..." 63 David M. Raup Emphasis added.
"only
15-20% of the earth's land surface has
even
3 geologic periods appearing in 'correct' consecutive order."
64
John Woodmorappe Emphasis added
"Any
sequence in which an older fossil occurs above
a younger one is stratigraphically disordered ... disorder may be from
millimeters to many meters ... (and) is produced by the physical or biogenic mixing of ... sediments ...
Since these
processes occur
to an extent in virtually all sedimentary systems, stratigraphic
disorder at some scale is probably a common
feature of the fossil record." 65 Emphasis Added
"The
extent of disorder ...is not well documented; however, the widespread occurrence of
anomalies ... suggest that disorder should be taken seriously..." ref.
61 p. 234. W. J. Arkell. Emphasis added
"Examination of Britain's record of the Ice
Age levels discloses a 'complex interbedding of drift sheets derived
from different sources.' 'When we add the additional complications imposed
by thin drifts, scanty interglacial deposits,
and
the frequent presence in fossil-bearing beds of secondary [displaced] fossils
derived from the reworking
of older horizons, we get a truly difficult overall problem ...
All
in all, British glacial stratigraphic research has
encountered exceptional
difficulties,' writes R. F. Flint, professor of geology at
Yale
University. 66,67
Immanuel Velikovsky Emphasis added
A Note about "Problematica":
"Problematica" is the
"code word" Paleontologists use to describe
out of order fossils,
or those that are not easily placed, or that are "mixed" in with
one's they shouldn't be
with.
If one were to perform an
internet search on this
word he or she may be surprised at
how
many web pages there are on it: especially considering that the word
isn't even in the Dictionary: at least not an English one.
For more on this see: Sea-Sloths
and Out of Order Fossils.
For those seeking more information
on this Worldwide Flood which almost certainly did occur, or how
a
Boat with Thousands of Animals onboard could possibly have survived Here
is a link that may answer
some of your questions. If not, feel free to email
the author, or to take the
IQ
test.
Copyright, 2006, Randy S. Berg; No part of this paper may be reproduced,
used, or sold for profit without
the express written consent of the author. Copies may be distributed
freely for educational purposes only.
Selected Links
Flood Legends
Polystrate Fossils
The La Brea Tar Pits
More Flood Evidence
Genesis and the Flood
The Florida Everglades
Evidence from Scripture I
Evidence from Scripture II
Evidence from Cyclothems
Questions about Noah's Flood
Sea Sloths and out of order Fossils
Tectonic Wedge Resonance Theory
Introduction:
Short Version
Long
Version
Part One:
Radiometric
Dating and the Age of the Earth
Part Two:
Continental Drift and the Age of the Earth
Part Three
The Big Bang Theory is in Big Trouble
Part Five:
Evidence
for a Young Earth