Time Immortal

Andrew Lamb writes in with a response to this article.

Hi (Kenneth ?)

In your posting on the biblical Flood you briefly mentioned geological evidence.

The sedimentary strata of the world have features that are highly consistent with rapid deposition by a global Flood, but hard to reconcile with slow-and-gradual scenarios.

These features include deep cross-bedding, uneroded interfaces between strata, the regional and even continental extent of some strata, the presence of fossils (without deep rapid burial dead organsims are scavenged and decay), the roughness of the constituent grains in many sandstones, etc.

One especially telling feature is the tightly bent yet still parallel strata in many mountain ranges. This indicate that the thick layers of sediment were wet and soft at the time they were deformed.

Other geological evidences for a global Flood include the ubiquitous phenomena of ‘water gaps’ and ‘underfit rivers’.

For details on these are other geological evidences of the global Flood, see the articles listed under the topic “Geology” in the Frequently Asked Questions index on the Creation Ministries International website, at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/21.

Andrew Lamb

With apologies to both Andrew and Inigo Montoya, let me begin by saying: this evidence does not mean what you think it means. The plain fact is, while Andrew has furnished us with a wealth of evidence, he has ultimately furnished us with evidence that supports the conclusion that the Earth is old; it is only by twisting, misrepresenting, or misunderstanding the evidence presented that we can arrive at the conclusion that the Earth is young.

Let’s look at the different pieces of evidence provided, and see if they actually demonstrate what Andrew asserts that they do.

Extent of Strata

I’m not sure how the fact that some geological strata are very expansive is supposed to help the Young Earth position — if there were only one such layer, then that might be an argument for a flood deposition layer depending on the composition of it. Or, it might be an argument for, say, a fallout layer from a meteor impact long ago, again depending on the composition of it.

That more than one layer exists, however, and that these layers are often separated by other, more localized layers, actually argues against a global flood theory.

Fossils

The presence of fossils certainly doesn’t prove that the Earth is young. While it is more or less true that fossils can only form when creatures are rapidly and deeply buried, this hardly implies that a global flood is the cause of all or most fossils. Local mudslides would have a similar effect, as would other catastrophes in which large amounts of earth were suddenly shifted about. Many environmental catastrophes can set up the necessary conditions for fossilization.

What is more, other Young Earth arguments are imperiled by the argument Andrew makes above. If, for instance, the many dinosaur fossils we have discovered are the result of rapid sediment deposition during a global flood, then why do we not find human fossils in the same geological layers, apart from a handful of intances where a burial ceremony has resulted in a body being embedded, much later, in an ancient geological layer?

The fossil evidence argues — strongly — against the Young Earth position, and Young Earth fossil theories are often mutually contradictory.

Water Gaps

Water gaps are narrow openings or notches in mountain ranges through which a river once flowed.

A water gap is usually an indication of a river that is older than the current topography. The river likely established its course when the landform was at a low elevation, with a very low stream gradient and a thick layer of unconsolidated sediment. The river therefore established its channel without regard for the deeper layers of rock.

A renewed period of uplift caused increased erosion, removal of the overlying sediments and exposure of the underlying rock layers. Rejuvenated drainage caused streams to follow weaker layers of rock, but larger watercourses, as long as the uplift did not exceed the rate of erosion, were able to cut through the harder rocks which generally became ridges. Water gaps are common in the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians of eastern North America.

Alternatively, a water gap can be formed through headward erosion of two streams on opposite sides of a ridge, ultimately resulting in the capture of one stream by the other.

This is a process that would play out over a long period of time. As I previously noted: the evidence of water gaps does not mean what Andrew thinks it means. The presence of these gaps — the products of millions of years of erosion — is actually an argument for a very old Earth. A quickly-receding global flood could not have carved these gaps; there is simply no means by which water could displace that much rock and sand in such a short amount of time, unless we are to assume that the entirety of the world’s surface was essentially loose soil and sand a few thousand years ago.
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