Evaluating the "Noah's Flood Hypothesis"

09/21/2002 04:26 PM

Flood geology theories popularized by young-earth creationists are nonbiblical doctrines. They are not demanded, or even suggested, by the text of Genesis. Of course, the book of Genesis does say that there was flood, and that it covered the earth [or 'land'; heb. 'eretz'], etc., but it tells us precisely nothing about what if any geologic changes were associated with that event -- not a word about the formation of any massive rock strata, or about catastrophic plate tectonics, or about massive volcanic processes, or other such topics. Genesis certainly does not suggest, or even hint, that Noah's flood had any significant effect on the earth's geology at all. Why?

Given the nature of the "flood catastophe" described by young-earth creationists, which posits a radical and complete reconfiguration of the earth's crust within a single year, the complete biblical silence on these matters demands an explanation. It hardly seems plausible that the author of Genesis would describe the exact construction materials, design and dimensions of the ark (300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high), the exact number of days the flood lasted, how many cubits worth of water covered the "high hills" (15 cubits), how old Noah was when the flood began (600 years old), where (the Mountains of Ararat) and what day (the seventeenth day of the seventh month ) the ark landed, the sort of birds (ravens and doves) Noah released from the boat and the type of branch (an olive branch) that the bird brought back, and sundry other details . . . but would not even mention the massive geologic and faunal changes supposedly associated with the flood? That the preflood land surface was deeply buried under miles of sediment, that whole slabs of crust has been subducted, that whole new oceans basins were formed, that the configuration and arrangement of the continents had changed dramatically [!], that new mountain chains were formed all over the earth, that many millions of cubic km worth of magma were extruded onto the earth's surface, that the preflood 'vapor canopy' had collapsed causing major, thus radically altering the climate, that dozens of meteorites had struck the earth during the flood year, that all the those giant dinosaurs were gone, that mountains had risen and continents split apart, and so forth?

Another possible conflict with flood geology is generated by Genesis' own description of the geography of the preflood earth. Genesis informs us, in clear, simple terms, that the Garden of Eden was located somewhere in the Persian Gulf.

Genesis 2:10-14
A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. . . The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The problem is that the topography described here matches the modern Tigris-Euprates valley, a very young, supposedly post-flood geologic feature. All of this is perfectly consistent with the known archaeology of the region. For instance, this is roughly where Ur, Uruk, and Eridu existed. The whole topography of this region is dictated by the tectonic events, namely the convergence of Africa and Europe, which are supposed to have occured during the Cenozoic, during or even after the flood. Karen Bartelt asks: "Are we to presume that the fountains of the deep blew, the vapor canopy collapsed, the oceans heated up, there was runaway plate tectonics, new ocean basins formed, massive amounts of sediment were deposited, and then when everything settled down, the Tigris and Euphrates just plopped back into their original river valleys?"

Of course not. How then do flood geologists resolve the conflict? Tas Walker at Answers in Genesis, responding to claims that Eden has been discovered, gives a revealing response:

"Everything that existed before the Flood was ‘deluged and destroyed’ (2 Peter 3:5–6). The Flood waters covered the highest mountains of the day (Genesis 7:19–20). We see the evidence of this cataclysm in the billions of fossils buried in sedimentary rock layers deposited from water all over the earth. This evidence is apparent in the rocks in Turkey and the Middle East where large areas of fossil-filled, sedimentary rock cover the land. Indeed, the pre-Flood vegetation buried deep underground in the Middle East now provides much of our global oil requirements. It is obvious that the present Tigris and Euphrates Rivers formed after the Flood, and on top of sediment laid down by the Flood. Thus, the Garden of Eden can't be located in the Middle East (either in Turkey or the Persian Gulf) on top of rocks laid down by the Flood."

Note the reasoning: the Garden of Eden cannot be located in the Persian Gulf (as the bible clearly describes), not because of biblical or geographical problems, but because *flood geology theories* claim that the entire surface of the earth was destroyed by the flood. So not only does Walker ignore the clear scientific evidence against his flood theory, he also ignores the clear statements of scripture which obviously do place the Garden of Eden in the Persian Gulf, and presuppose a geomorphic setting basically identical to that which exists today! Ironically, Walker reminds his fellow creationists: "We must never re-interpret Scripture just to make some outside evidence support an event of the Bible."

As a scientific theory, flood geology is hopelessly at odds with the evidence. There is little concensus amongst flood geologists on basic questions such as Which processes have produced which deposits, Where are the boundaries between flood and pre/post flood strata, Why are fossil groups thus distributed in the geologic record, etc.

Deductive logic is asymmetrical. Whereas we can say that uniformitarian geology is supported by empirical observations and is not contradicted, we cannot prove it with 100% certainty without a time machine . . . In contrast, the massive volume of data contradictory to flood geology conclusively falsifies that hypothesis with 100% certainty. It simply didn't happen that way. Please take special care to note that this falsifies one hypothesis about the processes that produced the rock record. It in no way negates God, religion, or morality (Cuffey, 1999)

1) Radiometric dates provide strong evidence that the strata of the Colorado Plateau were deposited over a period of about 1.8BY, not in a single, year-long flood which occurred a mere 4500 years ago.

• Ilg et al. have reported an age of 1750 Ma and 1742 Ma for the metavolcanic Vishnu schist (GSA Bulletin: Vol. 108, No. 9, pp. 1149–1166). The plutons which intrude the Vishnu Schist date from between 1741 ± 1 Ma (Zoroaster granite) and 1713 ± 2 Ma (Horn diorite). Both the Vishnu and the plutons are cross-cut/intruded by peraluminous granite and pegmatite dikes dated to 1698–1662 Ma. (Hawkins et al. U-Pb geochronologic constraints on the Paleoproterozoic crustal evolution of the Upper Granite Gorge, Grand Canyon, Arizona. GSA Bulletin: Vol. 108, No. 9, pp. 1167–1181).

• Recent ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age determinations indicate that the Unkar Group was deposited between ca. 1.1 and 1.2 billion years ago (Timmons et al., Geological Society of America Bulletin: Vol. 113, No. 2, pp. 163–181, 2000). The Precambrian Cardenas Lava on top of the Unkar Group is dated to about 1.15 billion years old (McKee and Noble, 1974). A U-Pb zircon age of 742 ± 6 Ma has been reported for an ash layer at the top of the Chuar Group (Karl E. Karlstrom et al., Chuar Group of the Grand Canyon: Record of breakup of Rodinia, associated change in the global carbon cycle, and ecosystem expansion by 740 Ma. Geology: Vol. 28, No. 7, pp. 619–622).

• Two radiometric ages have been published for the the reworked tuff deposits found in the highest member of the Chinle, a K-Ar biotite date of 239±9 Ma, and a U-Pb zircon date of 207±2 Ma (Riggs, N. R., S. R. Ash, and J. M. Mattinson. 1994. Isotopic dating of a non-volcanic continental sequence, Chinle Formation, Arizona. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 26(6):61).

• Ash beds within the Carmel have yielded dates between 166.3 and 168.0 ± 0.5 Ma (Kowallis, et al. The record of Middle Jurassic volcanism in the Carmel and Temple Cap Formations of southwestern Utah. GSA Bulletin, Vol. 113, No. 3, pp. 373–387).

• Tuff from the Jurassic Morrison Formation is dated to 155–148 mya (Turner and Peterson, 1998).

• Igneous sills on top of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale have been dated at 66 million years ago, and ash layers in the Green River Shale have been dated at 50.2 +/- 1.9 mya (Buchheim and Eugster, 1998).

This age progression from bottom to top is predicted by conventional geology, while the flood hypothesis predicts the absence of such age progression. If all these rock strata were deposited in the same year, they should all yield identical radiometric ages, because no radiometric dating technique has a resolution accurate to one year. This line of evidence is by itself sufficient to completely rule out the "Noah's Flood Theory." Creationist explanations, on the other hand, rely upon a divine intervention to accelerate decay constants, and to remove the heat generated by this accelerated decay [Note: Steve Austin of the ICR has claimed a Rb-Sr age of 1.3by for Pleistocene lava flows in the Grand Canyon. See Chris Stassen's Critique of ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project to see what Austin's results really indicate.]

2) a basic prediction the flood hypothesis makes about the "flood" deposits of the Colorado Plateau is that they were deposited in a subaqueously. This basic prediction is inconsistent with the presence of numerous subarial sedimentary features and bedding plane structures within the strata.

Dessication cracks, or "mudcracks," are another example. The form when fine-grained sediments shrink as a result of dessication. These cracks cannot form without exposure to air. These are found throughout the sedimentary record, in formations of all ages, and indicate that subaerial desiccation of fine-grained sediments has occured since the time the oldest sediments were deposited. Mudcracks occur at a variety of levels throughout the stratigraphic column discussed in this essay.

Some flood geologists have suggested that these structures might actually be subaqeous shrinkage cracks, or synaersis cracks. However:

• subaqeous shrinkage cracks do not form in all types of fine-grained lithologies, for instance in carbonate muds. Cuffey (1999) writes:

"Mudcracks, and associated sediments and sedimentary structures, are well documented from carbonate tidal flats in the Bahamas (Shinn, 1983), Persian Gulf (Bathurst, 1975; Shinn, 1983), and Shark Bay (Schreiber, 1986, p. 201, 202). On these tidal flats, sediment is transported from the subtidal environment by tides or storms onto the tidal flats, where it is deposited as thin laminae. The surfaces of the tidal flats are commonly encrusted by algal mats which help to trap the sediment. Due to the alternate wetting and drying, mudcracks form in abundance by subaerial desiccation. As the sediment dries, it shrinks, cracks, and hardens into tabular chips. During storms, these chips are eroded and redeposited as intraclasts. The association of thin laminations, mudcracks, and intraclasts, is unique to tidal flats (James, 1984, p. 216). Such thinly laminated, mudcracked carbonates are present throughout the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic, and include the Axemann Limestone (Lower Ordovician, Pennsylvania), West Spring Creek Limestone, Tonoloway Limestone (Upper Silurian, Pennsylvania), and the upper Keyser Limestone (Upper Silurian, Pennsylvania)."

"In the West Spring Creek Limestone, we find thinly laminated and mudcracked lime mudstone interbedded with skeletal wackestone, rippled oolitic grainstone, and intraclastic packstone. The logical conclusion is that these rocks were deposited by a repetitive succession of shallow subtidal, intertidal, and supratidal environments indicating repeated, localized transgressions and regressions on a carbonate platform. All of these sediment types are forming adjacent to one another on the Bahama Bank and Persian Gulf today, and in places can be observed to be in vertical succession (Shinn, 1983). Such successions are abundant in the rock record and have been termed "shoaling-upward sequences" (James, 1984). This type of detailed observation of the succession of different types of sediments, deposited in a variety of different environments, directly contradicts a flood."

• synaersis cracks can be distinguished from dessication cracks by observable criteria (Fouch & Dean, 1982, AAPG Mem. 31, p. 87-114; Shinn, 1983, AAPG Mem. 33, p. 171-210).

" . . . subaqueous shrinkage cracks differ from subaerial desiccation cracks in that they are not so well-developed, the cracks are rather narrow, and they do not possess well-developed V-shapes in transverse sections. In general, subaqueous shrinkage cracks are less regular in form and often incomplete. Sometimes, cracks are developed as open, straight to curved cracks occurring singly or in sets, having a preferred orientation. The cracks are 2-8 cm in length and known as linear-shrinkage cracks. According to Picard and High (1973) linear shrinkage cracks develop when relatively thick water-saturated thixotropic muds dehydrate usually under standing water" (Depositional Sedimentary Environments. Second Edition. Springer-Verlag, New York. 1980 p.60).

Recent Dessication Cracks. From Pamela Gore's Sedimentary Structures page.

Triassic Mucracks. From Pamela Gore's Sedimentary Structures page.

Paleosols. Several strata within the Colorado Plateau preserve ancient soil horizons, or paleosols, which require extended periods of subarial exposure to develop. According to Greg Retallack (personal communication, 6/5/00), author of Soils of the Past, well-developed paleosols are present in several Paleozoic strata mentioned in this essay, including the Redwall Limestone, the Supai Formation, and the Hermit Formation. Paleosols are present in the Chinle, Morrison, and Dakota formations as well. Jonathon Clarke, in Paleosols and the Global Flood, writes:

"Soils require three essential ingredients for their formation.  The first is subaerial exposure (they do not form beneath the sea); the other is time (they cannot form overnight). Studies on soils formed in areas with dated falls of volcanic ash or in areas exposed by glacial retreat show that good soil profiles take centuries to millennia to form.  Even the most obvious features of soils, such as leached A and enriched B horizons, need years to even begin to be evident. The third is that the rate of soil formation must exceed the rate of erosion.  If the rate of erosion is greater than that of soil formation, then soils will not form and the land surface will consist of weathered rock."

In the case of the global flood, obviously none of these three conditions could be satisfied. The presence of such paleosols in Phanerozoic strata is strong evidence against the theory that those strata were deposited by a single, year-long global flood.

Evaporites. Neither nodular evaporites or thick, laterally extensive evaporite deposits could have been produced during the flood. Several formations in the geologic column we've described contain evaporites. The Paradox Basin, for instance, in the vicinity of Canyonlands, contains salt layers up to 6,000 ft thick (Baars, p. 68). There are both laminated and nodular evaporites in the Toroweap and Kaibab formations. .

Often the salts are layered in inverse order of solubility, meaning that the least soluable salts precipitate first (lowest) and the least soluable salts last (highest). This is exactly what you get when you allow a bowl of seawater to evaporate, only in the case of the geologic record the bowls (or basins) are vastly larger. Sometime salts are arranged in a 'bullseye' pattern, such that the most soluable salts occur in the center of the evaporating basin, for instance the evaporites of the Deleware Basin..

Evaporites require several conditions to form, the most obvious being time (much longer than 1 year), a restricted marine environment, and an arid climate where evaporation exceeds precipitation. Halite deposits are forming today in arid, restricted marine environments such as the Dead Sea, Salar de Atacama in northern Chile, and elsewhere. Moreover, when we examine evaporite deposits in the geologic record, we typically find them associated with restricted marine environments too. Without a restricted marine environment, the salt could presumably never get concentrated or deposited in the first place, because it would simply remain in solution and diffuse thoughout the turbulent deluge ocean.

Some flood geologists have proposed a hydrothermal origin for evaporite deposits (for instance, E. Williams, Origin of bedded salt deposits, Creation Research Society Quarterly 26[1]:15­16,1989; Nutting, D. 1. 1984. Origin of bedded salt deposits: a critique of evaporative models and defense of a by hypothermal model. Masters Thesis. Institute for Creation Research). Tas Walker writes:

"One explanation says the deposits were formed when the sun evaporated seawater - hence the term 'evaporite deposits'. Naturally, to make such large deposits in this way would take a long time. However, the high chemical purity of the deposits shows they were not exposed to a dry, dusty climate for thousands of years. Rather, it is more likely that they formed rapidly from the interaction between hot and cold seawater during undersea volcanic activity - a hydrothermal deposit"

Hydrothermal systems consist of geothermally heated water flowing through fissures in rocks, and dissolving various minerals out of the rock. When the water cools rapidly, such as when it exits a fissure into seawater, the hydrothermal solution can no longer hold the material in suspension and thus deposits what it cannot hold. Can such a process explain large salt deposits in the geologic record more parsimoniously than the simple mechanism of evaporation?

• 1) Most large evaporite deposits found in the geologic record, for example those in intracratonic basins like the km thick Paradox salts, the 11 seperate salt beds in the Williston Basin (Morton, The Entire Geologic Column in North Dakota) or the 800-2500m thick deposits in the Medditeranean Basin, are not associated with typical hydrothermal deposits of iron, manganese and so on, or with hydrothermally altered rocks, or with stockworks, ore veins, or any other evidence of contemporaneous magmatic activity. That such evidence has not been found in telling, since any event which could deposit large salts in a period of mere weeks or months would be a very high energy event.

• 2.) Hydrothermal systems operating today in the sea at mid-ocean ridges, or on the continents (for instance in the Yellowstone National Park) do not seem to be depositing any sodium chloride, much less thick, laterally extensive sheets of salts such as those found in the sedimentary record, although hydrothermal systems in the ocean are depositing iron, manganese, copper and zinc sulfates, oxides and silicates. Anhydrite (CaSO4) is present in hydrothermal chimneys, but not as deposits surrounding the chimneys. This is not suprising, given that the mantle does not seem to contain significant source amounts of sodium of other volatile elements for hydrothermal systems to extract in the first place. In fact, hydrothermal solutions appear to contain smaller amounts of Cl and Na (17,300 and 9931 ppm) than normal seawater (19,500 and 10,500 ppm) (The Ocean Basins: Their Structure and Evolution, Open University, 1988, p. 100).

• 3) Sea floor basalt is often hydrothermally altered to significant depths, but as far as I know, no halite deposits are found in association with sea-floor basalts or in ophiolites. On the other hand, hydrothermal deposits of iron and manganese are almost always found overlying oceanic basalt where cores have been taken through oceanic sediments into the underlying basalt. So, in fact, hydrothermal deposits are found all over the ocean floor -- they just don't contain any evaporite deposits!

• 4.) Evaporites are often found in association with other sedimentary structures, such as vertebrate footprints, dessication cracks and occasional raindrop impressions, which are expected in a subarial depositional environments such as playas and sabkhas, but not in a subaqueous environment.

In fact, evaporites are often found not as bedded sheets, but as nodules formed by the displacive growth of large individual crystals within a fine grained matrix, such as can be observed in modern inland and coastal Sabkha environments. These crystals or nodules form not from the evaporation of a body of water in a basin, but rather grow _within_ supratidal sediments as saline groundwater is 'drawn upwards' from underlying sediments by evaporation. As the water evaporates at the sediment surface, the salt nodules (usually gypsum and anhydrite) grow, often forming a chicken-wire structure (Nichols, p. 177). In some cases, the evaporites grow into huge crystals resembling flowers (gypsum rosettes, 'desert roses'). All of these features are known from both modern sedimentary environments and ancient evaporite deposits. The Toroweap Formation in the Grand Canyon regions contains evaporites of this type, and here we find that the evaporites laterally grade into mud-cracked carbonate facies, which could not form either in a subaqeous environment, nor within the time constraints of the Noah's flood theory. Above the Toroweap, the Kaibab contains these evaporite nodules as well. Other well-known examples include the Devonian Muskeg Formation in Alberta, which is buried under 6000ft of additional "flood" sediments.

Enterolithic veins of Gypsum in Lower Cretaceous Purbeck Formation at Worbarrow Tout, Dorset, UK.

Enterolithic veins forming at the present day in a sabkha of desert loess (blown wind-blown silt) between El-Alamein and Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. (See - West, Ali and Hilmy, 1979. Primary gypsum nodules in a modern sabkha on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. Geology, 7, 354-358)

Modern gypsum rosettes from Saudia Arabia.

Gypsum rosette fabrics, Permian Seven Rivers Formation.

Again, the same structures can be observed to form in many modern coastal sabkha environments, and form by a distinctive process. How do hydrothermal systems deposit evaporite nodules within a bed of preexisting sediments? Flood geology needs to explain not only the fact of evaporite deposits, ignoring the actual geologic contexts in which they are found, but also the fact that evaporite deposits are typically found in sedimentary formation strongly resembling those forming evaporites in modern environments.

Gypsum nodules forming in Saudia Arabian Sabkha.

Nodular gypsum. Miocene Solfifera Series, Sicily.

Nodular gypsum in Permian Seven Rivers Formation.

• 5.) Contrary to Walker's suggestion, many evaporite deposits do in fact contain "impurities" such as pollen, plankton, algae, fungi spores, volcanic ash layers, and so forth, which we would expect on the restricted-marine model, but not what we would expect if these salts were rapidly extruded underwater in a global flood.
  
  For instance, the 2km+ thick Sedom Formation evaporites in the Dead Sea Basin are about 80% pure halite, with 20% gypsum, marl, chalk, dolomite and shale (Niemi et al., The Dead Sea: The Lake and its Setting, Oxford Monographs on Geology and Geophysics No. 36, p. 46). Significant amounts of pollen are also present. (See also Ulrich Jux, The Palynologic Age of Diapiric and Bedded Salt, Department of Conservation, Louisiana Geological Survey, Geological Bulletin 38, October, 1961, and Wilhelm Klaus, Utilization of Spores in Evaporite Studies, in Jon L. Rau and Louis F. Dellwig, editors, Third Symposium on Salt, Cleveland: The Northern Ohio Geological Society, Inc., 1970.) The Paradox Basin evaporites, mentioned earlier, have many thin interbedded shale layers containing brachiopods, condonts, and plant remains (Duff et al., Cyclic Sedimentation, Developments in Sedimentology, no. 10: Elsevier Publishing, 1967, p. 204). Of course, we should question the logic of requiring such material in the first place, since hypersaline basins are not typically full of living organisms.

Another line of evidence constraining the rate of evaporite deposition comes from analyses of micrometeoric content and magnetic spherules, which also points to rates of deposition of salts in the geologic record which are similar in magnitude to salt deposition occuring in modern basins (which vary with temperature and salinity, but which are usually a few cm per year, for instance, about 3-6cm per year in the Dead Sea Basin as measured between 1982-1989. Levy, Y. 1991. Modern Sedimentation in the Dead Sea across from En Gedi (1982-1989): Jerusalem, Geological Survey of Israel Report TR-GSI/2/91). This is based on the assumption that the flux of such magnetic spherules has been constant or nearly so during the Phanerozoic. See James Matthew Barnett, Sedimentation Rate of Salt Determined by Micrometeorite Analysis, M. S. Thesis, Western Michigan University, 1983, p. i., and Thomas A. Mutch, "Abundances of Magnetic Spherules in Silurian and Permian Salt Samples", Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 1 1966 p. 325. T

Subarial Sandstones. A final piece of evidence against the flood depositional model are the Esplande, Coconino and Navajo Sandstones, all of which are best interpreted as dry, desert deposits (see Coconino Sandstone in section 1). Each of these formations contain exactly the same sedimentary structures we see forming in sand seas today, including pure quartz grain composition, steeply inclined, wedge-shaped cross bedding, sand-slip structures, climbing translatent strata, and so forth. While subaqeous deposits do in fact display many of the same characteristics as subarial deposits, there are sedimentological criteria which can be used to identify subarial deposits. Cuffey:

"At first glance, without any additional observations, it would not be unreasonable to consider a subaqueous, possibly even flood, origin for these sandstones. Cross-bedding and ripple marks are certainly formed by water currents, as already stated, and these sandstones are quite thick and widespread. But again, this is not a unique, unequivocal interpretation. Careful examination of modern dunes indicates that climbing translatent strata, with coarsening-up laminae and rare foreset laminae, form only by the migration and accretion of low amplitude wind ripples in eolian environments (Hunter, 1977; Kocurek & Dott, 1981). Such strata and ripples are ubiquitous in the Navajo, Entrada, and similar sandstones (Kocurek & Dott, 1981), contradicting a subaqueous origin. Modern eolian sand dunes exhibit internal cross-bedding that is remarkably similar to that in the Colorado Plateau sandstones (Ahlbrandt & Fryberger, 1982, p. 19; McKee & Ward, 1983, p. 147; Collinson, 1986b, p. 104). Furthermore, we can observe the process of leeside grainfall forming eolian sand dunes in places like the Great Sand Dunes, White Sands (Collinson, 1986b), Monahans Sand Hills, Nebraska Sand Hills (Ahl brandt & Fryberger, 1982), or on Padre Island (Brookfield, 1984)."

Additionally, though these formations preserve the trackways of obviously terrestrial animals (spiders, various reptiles in the Coconino, dinosaurs, mammal-like reptiles, etc., in the Navajo), they are entirely lacking in marine fossils of any kind, even though each is bounded at top and bottom by densely fossiliferous, obviously marine strata. These formations are strong evidence against the theory that the strata of the Colorado Plateau were deposited by a single, year-long global flood. The most frequently cited "evidence" for the subaqeous origin of the Coconino, Brand et al.'s trackway morphology, is shown to be dubious in the text.

3) Unconformities and Evidence of Syndepositional Lithification. There are several unconformities within the stratigraphic column we have outlined. Criteria for recognizing unconformities include basal conglomerates, weathered zones or paleosols, truncation of underlying strata, borings, and relief (Davis, 1986). While the flood scenario implies that the Phanerozoic strata of the Colorado Plateau were deposited more or less continuously during a single, one year-long flood, the geological evidence indicates that numerous periods of nondeposition and/or subarial weathering and erosion occurred between various strata. In some cases these can be subtle, whereas others are obvious and uncontroversial to everyone except flood geologists. Some of the most notable are:

A. The unconformable boundary seperating the Vishnu complex and the Bass Limestone. The surface of the Vishnu Complex was totally beveled by erosion before the deposition of the lowest member of the Unkar Group, the Bass Limestone.

B. The unconformable boundary seperating the highest members of the Chuar Group and the overlying Sixtymile formation. The basal member of the Sixtymile formation is a brecciated conglomerate of stones eroded from the underlying Chuar group. Ford notes that "among these are large derived blocks, one being a dolomitic limestone block 26 x 130 feet (8 x 40m) that matches the dolomite horizon in the Walcott member of the Kwagunt" (p. 62). This implies that the interval between the Walcott and the Sixtymile was sufficiently long for the former to have become completely lithified.

C. The angular unconformity between the Precambrian Grand Canyon Supergroup and the Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone. This is the most dramatic unconformity in the entire Grand Canyon area. The Grand Canyon Supergroup, all 12,000 ft (2.3 miles) worth, was first deposited, then intruded by igneous dikes, then broken into giant, tilted fault blocks ("Basin and Range" faulting), then the fault blocks were eroded to a low relief plain, all before the flood even began.

D. The unconformable boundary seperating the Cambrian Muav Limestone and the Devonian Temple Butte Limestone. Channels were cut into the Muav, up to 100ft deep, before deposition of the Temple Butte Limestone. Again, this unconformity is to be expected, since the two formations contain different fossil assemblages, and are seperated by about 100 million years worth of geological time.

E. The unconformable boundary seperating the Redwall Limestone and overlying Supai Group. In this case, enough time must have elapsed after Redwall deposition, but before Surprise Canyon deposition, for the excavation of an extensive system of westwardly deepening drainage channels (up to 400ft thick) from the top surface of the Redwall, as well as the development of a karsted, cavernous topography complete with well-developed paleosols in some locations.

4) Stratigraphic Distribution of Fossils. The precise sorting of fossils and trace fossils within the strata of the Colorado Plateau is inconsistent with deposition in a global flood. Animal fossils, in the form of trilobites, sponges, and primitive molluscs, first appear in the Cambrian age Tonto Group. Tracks of small terrestrial animals appear first in the early Permian age Hermit Formation. By the time the latest Paleozoic strata were deposited, trilobites and trilobote traces, conodonts, graptolites, rugose and tabulate corals, fusilind foraminifera, blastoids, acanthodians, placoderms, pelycosaurs, and other groups all vanish from the fossil record. Other groups, such as bryozoans, brachiopods, ammonoids, sharks, bony fish, crinoids, eurypterids, ostracods, and echinoderms, survive the end-Paleozoic boundary, but are greatly reduced in numbers and diversity.

Dinosaurs make their first appearance in the early Mesozoic (early Triassic) Moenkopi and Chinle Formations, as do the tracks of "mammal-like" reptiles (cynodonts). These early dinosaurs are small and still morphologically very similar to their putative archosaurian ancestors. From late Triassic through Cretaceous strata, dinosaurs become increasingly abundant and diverse throughout. Only in Jurassic-Cretaceous age strata do we find remains of the large dinosaurs, sauropods for example. The dinosaurs, like icthyosaurs, mosasaurs, pterosaurs, as well as numerous marine organisms, disappear from the geologic record after the K-T (Cretaceous - Tertiary) boundary, both in the Colorrado Plateau region and in the world at large. In early Cenozoic (early Tertiary) and later strata, mammals diversify greatly, and it is only here that we begin to see the emergence of recognizable mammalian groups. Birds also become abundant about this time. It is only in the stratigraphically youngest strata, such as the Eocene Wasatch Formation, that anything resembling a modern terrestrial fauna is found.

Examples of such faunal sorting could be multiplied. For instance, what accounts for the distribution of conodonts? For instance, the three conodont zones in the Temple Butte, the three conodont zones of the Redwall Limestone, and the two conodont zones in the Surprise Canyon Formation each contain a different conodont assemblage. This sort of precise sorting is easily accounted for on the hypothesis that each of these formations was deposited slowly and that the conodont faunas were constantly changing. Its much harder to account for such a distribution when the time-dimension is decreased to only one year or less.

Trace Fossils. Trace fossils are sorted in the same fashion as the fossils themselves. This is significant, because even if we accept the creationist hypothesis that differential escape can account for the absence of the remains of any living terrestrial organisms in flood deposits, we should still expect to find the footprints of these animals. In the Colorado Plateau region, for example, we find 3-400 tetrapod tracksites, in numerous different formations, spanning 5 geologic periods from the Pennsylvanian to the Tertiary.

The earliest/stratigraphically lowest tracks are those of early, relatively small reptile tracks in the Pennsylvanian Wescogame Formation of the Supai Group and in the overlying Hermit Formation. These tracks, ichnogenera Anthicnium and Dromopus, are attributed respectively to a small, salamander-like amphibian and a small lizard-like reptile (Lockley and Hunt, 1995, p. 53). Tracks in the overlying Permian Coconino consist of small mammal-like reptiles and small caseid-type reptiles.

Tracks in the Triassic Moenkopi are attributed to small archosaurian reptiles of various types. In the overlying Chinle Formation, the first small Grallator dinosaur tracks appear. Throughout the Chinle Group, dinosaur tracks become larger and more abundant, whereas other types of archosaurs become less and less abundant. In the overlying Jurassic Glen Canyon Group, Grallator tracks exist but are much larger, about twice the size of those in the upper Chinle. The first sauropod tracks appear in the early Jurassic, having somehow evaded burial by earlier sediments. Lockley et al. (1994) note that "[s]auropod tracksites ranging in age from Early Jurassic through Late Cretaceous are known from more than 190 sites from all continents except Antarctica." Giant dinosaur tracks made by sauropods and theropods appear along side small ornithopod tracks in mid-late Jurassic formations such as the Morrison. In Cretaceous deposits, ornithopods tracks, including some which are very large, comprise a large proportion of the track fauna.

Tracksites from early Tertiary deposits contrast sharply with those of the late Mesozoic, displaying only tracks of birds, amphibians, and small mammals. In the Raton Formation, dinosaur tracks are known from just a few dozen cm below the K-T iridium spike. By coincidence, the earliest known Paleocene tracksite also comes from the Raton Formation, just 60cm or so above the K-T boundary. Tracks here consist of birds and small mammals (Lockely and Hunt, 1995, p. 245). If we place the flood/post-flood boundary at the K-T boundary, we must assume that these mammals made the trek from Ararat to New Mexico before the first 60cm or Tertiary sediments were deposited in the Raton Formation.

[note: the longest described trackways from the Colorado Plateau region are about 100m long. However, much longer tracks are known around the world. For instance, a 147m/482ft long mid-Jurassic brontosaur trackway has been mapped in Portugal (Lockley, 1999, p. 127), and a 311m/1000ft+ theropod trackway has been mapped in Turkmenistan (p. 135).]

The evidence from animal tracks shows that many land animals were alive and active, often moving in large coordinated groups of dozens of individuals (sauropods, brontosaurs and ornithopods) (see Lockley and Hunt, 1995), all throughout the time that flood geology asserts the entire world was deeply covered in water. What's more, despite the abundance of tracksites, footprints of modern terrestrial vertebrate species are absent in toto from all Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata, and appear only in mid-late Cenozoic strata. If all 'kinds' of animals inhabited the preflood world, we would expect not only their fossils, but their trace fossils as well, in strata from all geologic periods. Again, this is not what we find.

How do we explain the fact that footprints are found in formations of all periods from the Carboniferous onwards on the flood theory? According to the biblical account, all terrestrial animals are supposed to have been dead by the time the rain stopped and the fountains of the great deep were shut off, which is only 40 days into the flood. By this time, the mountains were covered 20ft deep, and thus any sediments deposited after this time would not possess trackways.

Thus, in order to be consistent with the biblical claim that "Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth," the entire Phanerozoic column must have been deposited before the earth was flooded, within the first 40 (?) days of the flood, while animals were yet living. While Covey implies that Tertiary deposits are flood deposits, it has become popular amongst some creationists to place the flood/post-flood boundary at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Lockley and Hunt report that dinosaur tracks are known from within 37cm of the K-T Iridium boundary clay in the Raton Basin, Colorado, and that bird tracks are known from just 60cm above the K-T boundary (1995, p. 238). Amphibian and mammal tracks are also known from early Paleocene deposits. So where, if anywhere, are the strata deposited by the flood proper, the one that flooded the whole earth and killed all terrestrial animals?

Invertebrate Trace Fossils

Several formations in the Grand Canyon-Grand Staircase contain invertebrate trace fossils. These are present in both marine (Tonto Group, etc.) and continental deposits (Coconino, Chinle fms., etc). Since these traces take time to make, and are often extremely abundant, they are a problem for flood geology. Steve Austin (1994, p. 40) argued that the vertical burrows, Skolithos and Diplocraterion, common in the Bright Angel Shale, can simply be regarded as upward 'escape traces' left by organisms escaping rapid sedimentation, and thus do not necessarily indicate any depositional hiatus. However, the burrows do not represent upward-only movement of the burrowing animal, as in escape traces. In fact, the morphology of diplocraterion burrows often show that the animals burrowing downward into the sediment rather than attempting to escape to the water-sediment interface. Below is an image of a diplocraterion burrow. The downwarped laminae in the middle of the U are referred to as spreiten, and are created when the burrower readjusts its burrow downward or upwards.

From the About Trace Fossils page.

The key to distinguishing upward (retrusive) from downward (protrusive) movement lies in the spreiten within diplocraterion. Spreiten can be defined as "bladelike to sinuous, U-shaped, or spiraled structure consisting of closely juxtaposed, repititious parallel to concentriuc feeding or dwelling burrows or grazing traces. Retrusive spreiten extend upward or proximal to the initial point of entry by the animal, and protrusive spreiten extend downward or distal to the point of entry."

According to Ekdale, Bromley, and Pemberton, SEPM short course 15, 1984, p. 16, upward movement causes spreiten to develop on the outer edge of the main U, whereas downward movement produces spreiten on the outside of the U. Since both protrusive and retrusive spreiten are present in many diplocraterion burrows, they cannot be regarded simply as escape traces. Thus they remain a problem for Austin.

From the About Trace Fossils page.

5) Sedimentological Problems. If all sedimentation occured during a single catastrophic flood, how were sediments perfectly sorted into discrete layers with sharp boundaries, sometimes covering thousands of square miles, which contain distinctive textural and minerological properties and distinctive fossil content? Why, for instance, are some formations almost pure carbonate with little or no terriginous sediments, while an overlying member might consist of almost pure quartz crystals, above which is a layer of pure salt, and so on? Why are some large shale formations consistently oxidized and red while others are consistently black and unoxidized? Why are some strata composed almost entirely of fossils and fossil fragments, while others contain no fossils at all?

Perhaps up to 3000ft of the Phanerozoic geologic column we've reviewed is composed of carbonate rocks. The Redwall Limestone is between 500-800ft thick, and is chemically very pure CaCo3, with very little terriginous sediment. Carbonate rocks are forming today, in marine environment with little or no terriginous sediment influx, at a rate of only ~2-4cm per year. The sedimentological characteritics of these modern deposits are virtually identical to those found in the sedimentary record. How do you rapidly deposit a chemically pure limestone, sometimes consisting almost entirely of biogenic debris, over an area of thousands of square kilometers, in the middle of a turbulent global flood, in a period of a year or less? Cuffey writes:

"in the context of a 'great flood', pure limestones would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to deposit. The flood waters must still have had clay suspended in it because we can observe shale overlying limestone in many places (Utica-Reedsville-Kope Shales on top of Trentonian Limestones, Ordovician, Great Lakes; Sylvan Shale on top of Viola Limestone, Ordovician, Oklahoma; Mandata Shale on top of Corriganville Limestone, Devonian, central Appalachians; Marcellus Shale on top of Onondaga Limestone, Devonian, New York). . . How could the carbonate mud be deposited while the clay remained in suspension? Brown (1996, p. 85-86) implied that limestones were precipitated out toward the end of the flood. This is directly contradicted by the rock record. Limestone is found throughout the rock record from the Proterozoic to the present."

Another potential problem for the rapid formation of large carbonate deposits is based on the amount of heat that would be released by such a process. Morton writes that "Each gram of carbonate gives off about 1207 kilocalories per mole (Wittier et al, 1992, p. 576). Since the density of the carbonate is around 2.5 g/cc this means that there are 2.2 x 10^6 moles of carbonate deposited over each meter. Multiply this by 1207000 joules per mole and divide by the solar constant and you find that to deposit these beds in one year requires that the energy emitted by each meter squared would be 278 times that received by the sun. Such energies would fry everybody and everything." Such rapid formation of calcite would leave evidence in the form of baked contacts with surrounding rocks which, so far as I know, is not observed in any carbonate deposits.

6) The Sediment Source Problem. The total thickness of Phanerozoic strata in the Colorado Plateau is at least one and a half miles. Most of this sedimentary rock is composed of detrital sediments such as shale and sandstone. A single flood could not erode the volume of sediment present in the Colorado Plateau. Water, even fast moving water, just does not break down rock that effectively. Precambrian strata of the Colorado Plateau and surrounding areas are largely composed of extremely resistant, metamophosed granites and volcanics, and lithified sedimentary deposits. Strahler writes: "Fully lithified, hard, dense rock --such as ... [various] kinds of igneous and metamorphic rock ... could withstand forty days and nights of torrential rainfall with scarcely a measurable quantity of erosional removal .... Even on the assumption that a thick (100-meter) layer of decayed rock (saprolite) was available... it would be woefully inadequate to supply the quantity needed to form all existing Proterozoic and younger sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks" (p 201).

7.) Finally, how were the steep walled canyons of the Grand Canyon region carved into the newly deposited, unconsolidated sediments of the Colorado Plateau? As Wise notes, there is an interesting problem here:

"In the Austin model (1994) the sedimentary rocks of the Grand Canyon were all deposited during the early part of the "flood-year," later to be incised into a canyon by the receding waters. The model requires the newly deposited rocks to become strong enough within a few months after deposition to stand as mile high cliffs in violation of all reasonable calculations from hydrology, soil mechanics, and strength of materials. Some rock types, for example, some limestones, become lithified soon after deposition, but most sandstones and shales require major loss of water, compaction, and/or chemical cement to become a strong rock, processes which involve significant amounts of time. This is especially true for very fine grained muds in which low permeability makes complete dewatering almost impossible in any short period of time. Simple loading of other materials on top will not do; trapped water in the muds would cause sudden liquifaction of the entire mass, a phenomenon known to hydraulic engineers as the 'sudden draw down condition.' Rapid drainage commonly results in collapse of oversteepened cut banks as flood swollen rivers subside. Mudstones in the young Grand Canyon model should have behaved in the same way but would have collapsed even more readily than canal and river banks considering Canyon cliff heights are measured not in meters but more than a thousand meters."

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