Geology: Eons of time, or a great flood? Part 14

Geology: Eons of time, or a great flood?
The Naturalistic Evolutionary Model:	An Intelligent Design - Young Earth/Cataclysm Model:
Prediction: Uniformitarian geological structures will be found all over the earth in coherent, time-sequenced patterns.	Prediction: Cataclysmic non-uniformitarian geological structures will dominate the earth’s surface.
Evolutionary theorists consistently interpret geological layers in terms of hundreds of millions of years. Their model of geological strata presupposes chronological layering. It is divided (from oldest to youngest) into Pre-Cambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras with each of these subdivided into Eons or Periods. Young Earth scientists, on the other hand, site the lack of chronological coherence to the kinds of rocks and fossils found in the supposed layers to be an indicator of a single massive cataclysmic flood. These scientists propose that massive multiple layers thousands of feet thick were quickly formed settling onto all of the great plains of the earth’s crust with chasms being cut during one major drainage event which would have naturally followed the flood. The drainage event would thus explain the great canyons of the earth’s plains. These scientists would propose that there was one ice age subsequent to the flood. They would propose that there is no evidence for the currently held uniformitarian geological frame. The evolutionary model has significant trouble explaining the following anomalies that can easily be explained with a worldwide flood: 1. The model of the geological column in science textbooks is not found complete anywhere on the earth. For example, the Grand Canyon is missing 150 million years of strata. For this model to be true, there must be unknown geologic activity that nicely erases periods of earth’s history by wiping away seemingly random strata allowing for subsequent layers to sit undisturbed in neat pancake fashion on top of others. Missing strata vary from geographical location to geographical location and cover vast areas of the earth’s surface. 2.The determination of a layer is not dependant upon the kind of rocks found in it, nor by any dating technique, much less by the order of the layering with the most recent being on top. No! Rather the age of a stratum is determined by the kind of “trace” fossils found in it. This would be great if there were any validity to the age of the “trace” fossils! 3. Layers are often out of order with the wrong layers on top. In other words often “older” layers are found on top of “younger” ones. In most cases these bizarre reversals show no evidence that the younger layer slipped somehow under the one above it. The layers sit nicely one on top of another sometimes covering many thousands of square miles. The theory of “subduction” was invented to try to explain away the existence of these impossible strata inversions. 4. Strata all over the earth’s surface are found neatly parallel to each other with little indication of millions of years of erosion, of mountain formation, of earth shifting, of earthquake, or of volcanic activity between layers. 5. Polystrate fossils such as tree trunks are neatly found in upright positions on every continent. Evolutionary theory requires that these fossils were positioned across multiple layers through “hundreds of thousands of years” of geologic strata deposition. More realistically these fossils (which are sometimes found upside down) were stuck in deep mud that stratified while the logs were in vertical positions. In other words, all the layers covering these polystrate fossils were layered in a single catastrophic event. 6. Shells, and other ocean fossils are found on the tops of all major mountains. 7. Strata hundreds or even thousands of feet thick are neatly folded together indicating that these were layered together and bent while still plastic like clay. Had they been dry, they would have crumbled in the folding. 8. The dating of layers involves circular reasoning. Trace fossils are used to supply ages for strata. The presumed ages of strata are used to confirm the ages of the trace fossils. Radiometric dating has been found useless to independently date the strata. No other independent measurements are used to confirm these supposed ages. (See sections on radiometric dating, and on fossil evidence.) 9. Even evolutionists indicate that the evidence points to catastrophic events in contradiction to the prediction of uniformitarianism. For example, most evolutionists agree that the dinosaurs died in a catastrophic event when a meteor hit the earth. Neo-evolutionists propose at least 4 worldwide catastrophic events. Such events, however, would cause mass extinction accompanied by severe and radical changes to the global environment alternatively causing: tsunamis; deluge; earthquakes; volcanic activity; heating; atmospheric shading; freezing; the release of toxic gas over the whole earth; greenhouse effects; ice ages, etc. Each geologic catastrophe would set evolution back tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of years and require efficient evolutionary processes to re-establish newly derived species from the poorly adapted survivors. 10. Under such conditions, it is hard to explain the stasis of species. How is it that certain species show virtually no change over hundreds of millions of years in light of the dramatic changes to the earth’s environment?

(Part 15 Coming Soon)