Issue 7. Finding the Flood

Young Earth Creation stratigraphic order 

Photo from New Brunswick coastline

      Printable PDF File: Finding the Flood

Assertions: 

1. Geologic stages in this model should consist of 1) rock created as such, 2) rock from before the flood (if any), 3) Flood deposits, 4) early post-flood deposits and 5) late post-flood deposits (after Abraham)
2. YEC flood geology (FG) model claims that the Genesis flood was a global catastrophic event.
3. Deposits from such a totally unique event should be distinct and highly recognizable.
4. Even proponents of FG cannot agree on what the rocks constitute flood deposits.
5. If the proponents can’t make a reasonably consistent story of what constitutes flood deposits, then the proposal is flawed.

Key assumptions:

a) A massive global catastrophic flood deposit would be recognizable.

b) When YEC authors indicate which intervals are attributed to the flood, then the rate of deposition can be calculated based on their interpretation.

c) Extremely rapid sedimentation rates would be recognizable in the rocks.

Discussion:

FG authors have made many different interpretations of how to place Noah’s flood in the rock record, going back to the 1700’s.  Their basic model demands a global cataclysmic event that resulted in most of the rock record that we see across the whole planet. This should reflect cataclysmic processes that acted over the course of 1 year. Genesis is really specific about the duration. Afterward, within a short period, the planet should have stabilized, as evidenced by Noah’s activities. Some suggest that this may have taken a few years, but beyond that, normal processes such as we have today should have been the rule. We should be looking for a thick interval with dramatic chaotic processes (flood deposits) overlain by layers of normal processes (post-flood). I would think that such a flood deposit should be really easy to pick out.  Apparently not.  Apparently both the top and base are not so distinct. Figure 1 above shows some of the published interpretations.

Figure 1. Compilation of correlations reported by YEC papers and the geologic column. See figure 3 for the time spans of the YEC intervals. Some authors do not recognize the validity of the column at all. Whitcomb and Morris, 1961 do make general statements that make it clear that they consider most of the Tertiary section to be the direct result of the Genesis flood. Some break out early, mid and late flood deposits and these are shown as well.  See references section for citations.

In the figure, the different periods and epochs for the Cenozoic are drawn with the same thickness, regardless of how long they lasted, to make the point that ages, based ultimately on radiometric dates, are not the issue. The different interpretations of the top and base of the flood reflect huge differences in the rocks included. To demonstrate this, I will draw from an area that includes the states of Texas and New Mexico, part of northern Mexico and the western Gulf of Mexico, out to the Sigsbee escarpment. (Mitchell, 2018). Figure 2 shows the maximum stratigraphic thickness for each time period graphically, as one stratigraphic column, showing the thickness difference between different YEC proposals. Understand that this is not the thickness at any particular point for all of the periods, but the thickness for the thickest Cambrian sediments, the thickest Ordovician section, etc. It so happens that for the older section, the Paleozoic, for many of the intervals, the thickest parts are located in the thickest part of the Delaware Basin. The thickest intervals for other periods are located in other areas. The maximum thicknesses are all in sizable sedimentary basins, not from local anomalies nor reflecting tectonic thickening due to repeat sections or such. This graph shows that the different YEC interpretations result in differences that are literally miles thick. Thus, one author is calling several miles of rock to have resulted from a catastrophic flood, while another is interpreting this same thick interval to reflect normal sedimentation that took place after the flood. These are by no means global maximum thicknesses and thus, thicker pre-Devonian sediments for instance are located in other parts of the world. Another way to look at this is in a cross-section view. The cross-section in Figure 3, running from New Mexico to the Sigsbee Escarpment in the Gulf of Mexico, shows how different these interpretations are.  Thousands of wells constrain the cross-section.

Figure 2. Compilation of maximum thickness of sediment in my study area, by the stratigraphic ages, here compared to four examples of YEC published interpretations.  These used as representative examples of those shown in Figure 1.

Figure 3. Profile from Mitchell, 2018 with various proposed “flood geology” interpretations of the stratigraphy. The Whitcomb and Morris 1961 interpretation and that of several other authors makes most of the stratigraphic column be flood deposits. This does help account for the thinness of the post-flood deposits but has numerous other problems. The Scheven 1990 interpretations has the narrowest flood deposits but makes all of the post-flood, section 4 rocks extremely thick. The proposals that make the base of the flood deposits be the top of the Cretaceous has all of the problems of the other two proposals.

Comparing the YEC flood model to the rock record in Texas and New Mexico helps to explain some of the reasons that few geologists can accept any of these proposed interpretations of geology. Geologists Carl Froede and John Reed tried to apply the YE models to the northern Gulf of Mexico and also predictably, found difficulties (Froede and Reed 1999). They found it impossible to reconcile the standard stratigraphic column which they refer to as “global uniformitarian stratigraphic column” (GUC) with predictions from creationists.  They essentially proposed throwing out the stratigraphic column and somehow making high-energy deposits to have been directly deposited by the flood and low-energy deposits to be considered post-Flood. The authors are one of the few examples of YEC authors recognizing the scale of the problem represented by the thick rock record along the Gulf Coast. They tried to accommodate it in their proposals, instead of just ignoring it. The article does not have examples of how they would apply this concept to the actual stratigraphy of the Gulf of Mexico, but presumably they would somehow separate the coarser grained, higher energy deltaic and beach deposits from the more distal slope deposits. However, it is not difficult to show numerous seismic examples that demonstrate the time equivalence of the deepwater deposits with the deltaic and beach units.  I have done this with literally hundreds of seismic profiles. Regardless of what the absolute age of the units is, their overall relative ages are very solid, as conceded by YEC authors such as Snelling, Austin, Baumgardner, Garner and Clarey. However, the Froede and Reed article does illustrate the futility of trying to fit the flood model into the rock record of the Gulf Coast.

One of the latest developed YEC columns that I have seen was put out by Timothy Clarey in 2020.  Using his chapter titles, Figure 4 shows his interpretation.  This helps to keep things in perspective.  All of the dinosaur fossils, tracks, and egg nests were formed in about 70-80 days.  In the “study area”, thicknesses of over 7 miles in thickness were deposited in that time.  Rates were extremely high to say the least.

Figure 4 The left column shows the geologic column from a YEC point of view as presented in Mitchell, 2018. The middle column represents the stages of Noah’s flood as characterized by Dr Clarey in Carved in Stone (CIS), 2020 in terms of days. The right column shows the Sloss (1963) megasequences as shown in CIS with colors added. Conventional age dates in millions of years are shown on the right column.

As referenced in the issues of reefs and of stromatolites, Ken Coulson (2021) has proposed another alternative based on his recognition that stromatolite reefs in the early Paleozoic were deposited in situ and could not be considered deposits from a global flood. As noted in the Issue 1, reef article, this should make the issue of later reefs in the geologic record clearer to flood geology advocates because it shows that detailed work even by someone with a YEC perspective, when working ancient sections is likely to find difficulties fitting rocks into a global flood model.

References:

Austin, S. A., Baumgardner, J. R., Humphreys, D. R., Snelling, A. A., Vardiman, L., and Wise, K. P. 1994. “Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global Flood Model of Earth History.” Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism (pp. 1–12). Pittsburg: Creation Science Fellowship, Inc.

Clarey, T, 2020, Carved in Stone, Geologic Evidence of the Worldwide Flood, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas

Coulson, KP, 2021, “Using Stromatolites to Rethink the Precambrian-Cambrian Pre-Flood/Flood Boundary”, www.answersingenesis.org/arj/v14/stromatolites_precambrian_cambrian.pdf

Froede, C. J., and Reed, J. 1999. “Assessing Creationist Stratigraphy with Evidence from the Gulf of Mexico.” Retrieved April 24, 2013, from The True Origin Archive: http://www.trueorigin.org/cfjrgulf.asp

Garner, P. 1996. “Where Is the Flood/post-Flood Boundary? Implications of Dinosaur Nests in the Mesozoic.” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal. Retrieved from https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j10_1/j10_1_101-106.pdf

Huse, S. 1983. The Collapse of Evolution. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

Mitchell, SM, 2018, A Texas-Sized Challenge to Young Earth Creation and Flood Geology, Meadville, PA, Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

Oard, M. 2007. “Defining the Flood/post-Flood Boundary in Sedimentary Rocks.” Journal of Creation. Retrieved from Creation.com: https://creation.com/defining-the-flood-post-floodboundary-in-sedimentary-rocks

Scheven, J. 1990. “The Geological Record of Biblical Earth History.” Origins, Journal of the Creation Research Society pp. 8–13.

Sherwin, F., and Thomas, B. 2010. Understanding Evidence for the Biblical Timescale. Retrieved from Institute for Creation Research: http://www.icr.org/article/understanding-evidence-for-biblical/

Snelling, A. 2009. Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Vol. 1 and 2. Dallas: Institute for Creation Research.

Walker, T. 2014. “Aronofsky’s Noah Will Stimulate Biblical Geology.” Retrieved from http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/aronofskys-noah-will-stimulate-biblical-geology

Whitcomb, J., and Morris, H. 1961. The Genesis Flood. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.