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CREATIONISM VS EVOLUTION, (CONT.)
II) SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY & PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF A RECENT CREATION, (cont.)
B) SCRIPTURAL TESTIMONY & PHYSICAL EVIDENCE FROM EARTH WHICH TESTIFY TO A RECENT CREATION, (cont.)
5) PERIOD OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD, (cont.)
c) PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD, (cont.)
2) EARTH FLOODED BY SUBTERRANEAN WATERS & TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR
[pp. 7-11, 33]:
"The expression 'the fountains of the great deep burst open.' [Gen 7:11] points unmistakably to vast geological disturbances that are incompatible with the local-Flood concept, especially when these disturbances are said to have continued for five months...
[Gen 7:11-12, 24]:
(v. 11) "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.
(v. 12) And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
(v. 24) And the water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days."
"fountains of the great deep burst open"=]
According to Brown, Driver, and Briggs, [Hebrew Dictionary] the word "tehom" (translated 'deep' in this verse) has the primary meanings of (1) 'deep, of subterranean waters,' (2) 'sea,' and (3) 'primeval ocean, deep.' There can be little question, then, that the phrase "tehom rabbah" ('great deep') points back to the "tehom" [= "deep"] of Genesis 1:2 ["And the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep"] and refers to the oceanic depths and underground reservoirs of the antediluvian world. Presumably, then, the ocean basins were fractured and uplifted sufficiently to pour waters over the continents, in conjunction with those waters which were above the 'firmament' (expanse) and which poured down through the 'windows of heaven.'...
...the Scriptures state that this breaking up of 'the fountains of the great deep' continued for a period of five months; for it was not until after the 150 days had passed that 'the fountains of the deep...were stopped' (8:2). Such vast and prolonged geologic upheavals in the oceanic depths cannot be reconciled with the theory that the flood was merely a local inundation in some part of the Near East. Instead, this Biblical information gives substantial support to the concept of a geographically universal Deluge."
[p. 258]
"We have seen that most of the earth's crust, up to and including some of the [so called] Proterozoic strata, was probably formed during the period of Creation. Also, there must have been a primeval mantle of soil supporting the luxuriant plant life of the antediluvian earth. During the relatively brief period between the Fall and the Deluge, however, probably few deposits were formed, and those that were formed were most likely swept away by the waters of the Flood, together with the original soils and other unconsolidated materials.. And it is highly probable that many of even the primeval crustal rocks were broken up, swept away, mixed and eventually redeposited by the tremendous hydrodynamic forces of the floodwaters, as well as by the volcanic and other phenomena accompanying them.
...The Noachian Deluge was a cataclysm of absolutely enormous scope and potency and must have accomplished an immense amount of geologic work during the year in which it prevailed over the earth... ...many of the the earth's present rock strata must have been produced by the Flood!"
b) DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF MODERN RIVER FLOODS
[p. 259-261]
"Even the relatively trivial floods of modern experience exert tremendous erosive and tractive [pulling] forces. Sir Cyril S. Fox, Director of the Geological Survey of India and a man of long experience with floods and their effects, says:
'The astonishing power exerted by a flood of rushing water, both in scouring and in transporting material, is rarely fully appreciated even today.'
[Cyril S. Fox: Water (New York, Philosophical Library, 1953), p. xiv]
Sir Cyril quotes from a striking account of floods in northeast India:
P. D. Oldham has given a brief description of the carrying power of flood streams in the Cherrapunji (Assam) region, which is subject to heavy rain. He wrote: '''...the water had risen only thirteen feet above the level at which it had stood a few days previously; the rush was tremendous - huge blocks of rock measuring some feet across were rolled along with an awful crashing, almost as easily as pebbles in an ordinary stream. In one night a block of granite, which I calculated to weigh upwards of 350 tons, was moved for more than a hundred yards; while the current was actually turbid with pebbles of some inches in size, suspended almost like mud in the rushing stream...''' In that region there now is practically no soil on the Cherrapunji plateau, and it is also noticeable that water carrying much mud in suspension (and its increased density therefrom) carries larger stones than clear water, for equal velocities.'
[Ibid., p. 70]
One must visualize flood action like this, not in a limited locale but worldwide, not for a few days or hours but continuing for weeks and months, to appreciate the character of the Biblical Deluge. On the other side of the world, from Utah, comes an account of another modern flood:
'On this area the 1930 floods destroyed houses, broke in the east wall of the schoolhouse, and deposited debris to a depth of several feet, including boulders of all sizes up to 20 tons in weight. Some larger boulders were moved about 1000 feet from the canyon's mouth down a 4' gradient. Several of these weigh from 75 to 100 tons each, and two, previously mentioned, weigh 150 and 210 tons respectively. The deep gorges freshly excavated for the full length of the flooded canyons are no less impressive than the flood depositions in the valley. Cuts were made in typical canyon fill - in places to a depth of 70 feet. Long, continuous stretches of bedrock were exposed on the bottom of the channels. The canyon fill consisted of debris brought from further upstream by running water, and of materials collected from the adjacent canyon slopes. Included were boulders ranging up to 50 feet in diameter.'...
FORMATION OF CANYONS BY MEGA FLOODS
Amphitheater-headed canyons have been used as diagnostic indicators of erosion by groundwater seepage, which has important implications for landscape evolution on Earth and astrobiology on Mars. Of perhaps any canyon studied, Box Canyon, Idaho, most strongly meets the proposed morphologic criteria for groundwater sapping because it is incised into a basaltic plain with no drainage network upstream, and approximately 10 cubic meters per second of seepage emanates from its vertical headwall. However, sediment transport constraints, 4He and 14C dates, plunge pools, and scoured rock indicate that a megaflood (greater than 220 cubic meters per second) carved the canyon about 45,000 years ago. These results add to a growing recognition of Quaternary catastrophic flooding in the American northwest, and may imply that similar features on Mars also formed by floods rather than seepage erosion.
GEOLOGIC SETTING
The name "Channeled Scablands" was first used in the early 1920's by geologist J Harlen Bretz of the University of Chicago, who made a comprehensive study of the region and proposed the idea that the erosional features were the result of a gigantic flood. Although Bretz' concept sparked a lively controversy, most geologists today agree that the Scablands were carved by a flood of unprecedented proportions that took place 18,000 to 20,000 years ago during the Great Ice Age.
The Spokane Flood left its mark along a course of more than 550 miles, extending from western Montana to the Pacific Ocean, but the most spectacular flood features were carved into the black volcanic rock terrain in eastern Washington. This rock, the "floor" of the Scablands, is basalt—a dense crystalline lava that covers more than 100,000 square miles in parts of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The part of the lava field that underlies the Scablands in eastern Washington is a saucer-shaped area of about 15,000 square miles almost completely surrounded by mountains and nearly encircled by three rivers—the Columbia, the Spokane, and the Snake (Fig. 2, page 3).
MARS
By Becky Ferreira
Nov 16 2018, 11:00am
Megafloods on Mars Carved Giant Canyons Into the Red Planet
Jezero Crater, site of a Martian paleolake, is on the shortlist of landing sites for NASA's Mars 2020 rover.
Mars is currently a barren world of ice and dirt, but at one time catastrophic “megafloods” of water carved massive canyons across the surface of the red planet.
Some 3.7 billion years ago, when Mars was warmer and wetter, there were likely hundreds of lakes and rivers on its surface that may have supported favorable conditions for life. These bodies of water are long gone, but they carved permanent features into the Martian landscape, called paleolakes and paleochannels, that scientists can study for clues about the watery Mars of the past.
Now, scientists have discovered that some of these ancient lakes burst through their crater basins, causing outburst floods, also known as megafloods, which carved out wide canyons within a few weeks. The new finding, published on Friday in Geology, confirms that these flood features, called outlet canyons, were formed on very short timescales, and were a major geological force in Mars’ first billion years as a planet.
Led by Tim Goudge, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, researchers studied 24 ancient crater paleolakes imaged in high resolution by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The paleolakes all had breaches punched through the side of their basins where water flowed into outlet canyons during Mars’ early days.
These Martian canyon patterns match existing models projecting the effects of sudden megafloods, and they also corresponded to real geological features on Earth. In particular, glacial lake outburst flows, like the Missoula Floods some 13,000 years ago, left behind similar features such as the Channeled Scablands in Washington state.
Where Mars’ lakes were confined in crater basins, Earth’s glacial lakes are contained within icy dams. Megafloods on both planets occur when these structures are breached or overflow, forming similar outlet canyons.
“Given the large size of many paleolake outlet canyons on Mars, we hypothesize that lake overflow flooding was an important process for shaping the early Martian landscape,” the authors said in the study.
For years, scientists have
been interested in landing rovers inside these paleolakes, because they
are among the most likely locations to find fossils of ancient Martian
life. Jezero Crater, a 30-mile-wide impact basin that was among the
locations Goudge’s team studied, is on a shortlist of three landing
sites that NASA is considering for its Mars 2020 rover.
END OF COMMENT ON THE FORMATION OF CANYONS BY MEGA FLOODS
[R. W. Bailey, C. L. Forsling, and R. J. Becraft: 'Floods and Accelerated Erosion in Northern Utah,' U.S. Dept. of Agric. Misc. Publ. 196, 1934, p.9]
...As far as the ordinary smaller materials - sands and silts and clays - are concerned, rivers in flood stage normally excavate their beds to tremendous depths, carrying vast quantities of sediment along in suspension or along the bed, to be redeposited downstream when the flood subsides. The action of the great Colorado River of the western United States is not untypical:
'From the above description it is clear that when the Colorado River was in flood it was acting on the solid rock of its bed down to a depth of over 120 feet from the top of the flood water, but that as the current subsided it first filled up the inner and deep canyon and then covered the rock platform, thus giving no idea of the violence of its section in depth, where it could flush with great force more than 115 feet of sand-filled cuttings. Without such proofs few engineers would be inclined to believe that silting follows sand movements down to depths of 50 and 100 feet below normal bed level at each time of high flood.'
[Cyril S. Fox, op. cit., p. 111]
...If this kind of activity occurs during present-day floods, what must have been the tremendous quantities of sediment eroded and transported when rain poured forth over all the earth for at least forty days without stopping! Lest anyone should object that the heavy stands of antediluvian vegetation may have prevented serious erosion by the floodwaters, we cite the following from the Yale conservationist, Dr. Paul Sears:
'It is often said that deforestation causes floods. This is a half-truth. Water flows faster, and in greater amounts, off of cleared land than off of forested land - up to a certain point. When rainfall exceeds the critical amount, especially on shallow soils, such as we have in New England, not even forests will hold it back.' "
[Paul B. Sears: 'Natural and Cultural Aspects of Floods,' Science, Vol. 125, Apri. April 26, 1957, p. 807]
c) DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF OCEAN WAVES
[pp. 261-265]
"And it must not be forgotten that the flood damages were due not only to the torrential rains pouring from the skies. There were also great volcanic upheavals, evidently unleashing vast amounts of juvenile waters and creating profound disturbances in all the earths's seas and waterways. Great tidal waves undoubtedly were generated in prodigious numbers, as the imprisoned waters progressively escaped through crustal fractures all around the earth, when 'the fountains of the great deep were broken up.'
Even the action of ordinary waves and littoral [coastline] currents can, over relatively short periods of time, accomplish tremendous amounts of sedimentary work along coast lines, when something happens to change the sediment balance normally existing.
'Any unusual conditions, whether natural or man-made, may upset the balance in such a way that what has been a very stable beach may quickly show significant erosion or accretion. For example, the hurricanes that at times sweep the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States frequently produce pronounced changes on the affected beaches.'
[J. M. Caldwell: 'Beach Erosion,' Scientific Monthly, Vol. 69, October 1949, p. 432]
Obviously the onset of the Noachian Flood would have presented profoundly 'unusual conditions' and would have immediately attacked the antediluvian beaches. And the destructive effect of ordinary storm waves is trivial compared to that of tidal waves or tsunamis, such as must have occurred with great frequency and complexity during the Deluge Period. Speaking, however, of ordinary waves, King says:
'Waves are seldom more than twenty-five feet high; but violent storms may raise them to sixty feet, and there are unverified reports of even greater heights... The immense striking power of a wave cannot be realized until it hits an object that cannot float with it. Waves striking the shore of Tierra del Fuego can be heard for twenty miles. Spray from a storm wave has been hurled to the top of a lighthouse nearly 200 feet above sea level. The force of waves striking the shore can be measured, and has been found to reach three tons per square foot.'
[Thomson King: Water (New York, Macmillan Co., 1953), p. 49]
...The immense erosive power of such forces should be obvious. Thornbury graphically describes these powers as follows:
'Waves, particularly storm waves and tsunamis, [gigantic tidal waves caused by submarine earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or slides], are the most important agents of marine erosion. Smaller waves, such as those associated with surf, may carry on attrition of material and minor amounts of abrasion, but, just as a stream during a single flood may do more geologic work than it will for months or years at low-water stage, so storm waves during a short period may effect more change than ordinary waves will in months. ...The enormous force exerted by breaking waves is attested by recorded movements of masses weighing many thousands of pounds. Air in joints and cracks is suddenly compressed and acts as if a wedge were suddenly driven into them. Recession of the water is accompanied by a sudden expansion of air with explosive force. This driving of water into cracks not only exerts great mechanical stress but in soluble rocks may greatly accelerate solution.'...
[W. D. Thornbury: Principles of Geomorphology (New York, Wiley, 1954), p. 432]
... Willard Bascom, a leading oceanographer, tells of wind-generated waves exceeding 100 feet in height and describes some examples of the immense destructive forces that storm waves can develop.
'At Cherbourg, France, a breakwater was composed of large rocks and capped with a wall 20 feet high. Storm waves hurled 7,000 pound stones over the wall and moved 65-ton concrete blocks 60 feet... At Wick, Scotland, the end of the breakwater was capped by an 800-ton block of concrete that was secured to the foundation by iron rods 3.5 inches in diameter. In a great storm in 1872 the designer of the breakwater watched in amazement from a nearby cliff as both cap and foundation, weighing a total of 1350 tons, were removed as a unit and deposited in the water that the wall was supposed to protect. He rebuilt the structure and added a larger cap weighing 2600 tons, which was treated similarly by a storm a few years later.'...
[Willard Bascom: "Ocean Waves," Scientific American, Vol. 201, August 1959, p. 80]
Probably the most destructive of all waves is that form of tidal wave known as the tsunami. Actually, these are not true tidal waves, although commonly called so, but are caused by submarine earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or slides. They have been known to attain velocities of 400 or more miles per hour and heights of 130 feet and to travel extraordinary distances...
[Ref. P. H. Kuenen: Marine Geology (New York, Wiley, 1950). p. 80]
...The great Krakatoa earthquake, in the East Indies in 1883, created immense waves at least 100 feet high and traveling up to 450 miles per hour inundating neighboring islands and drowning nearly 40,000 people. A tsunami from this quake was still two feet high as it passed Ceylon and nine inches high at Aden beyond the Arabian Sea! In 1946, a tsunami originating in a quake in the Aleutian Island region traveled 470 miles per hour across the Pacific, creating a 19-foot high 'tidal' wave on the shores of Hawaii, with great destruction. A wave that swept across the Bay of Bengal in 1876 left 200,000 people dead.'
[Willard Bascom op. cit., pp. 81-83]
...Even more recently, tsunamis generated by the destructive Chilean earthquakes of 1960 have demonstrated once again the power available in this type of wave. A news account states:
'The disastrous series of earthquakes that struck Chile late in May has brought death and destruction to countries on the perimeter of the entire Pacific ports, from Japan to California and from Alaska to New Zealand. The waves that wrecked the coastal villages of Japan a third of the way around the world were 32 ft. high. In both Japan and Hawaii, which was struck by four waves, there was serious loss of life and extensive property damage.'
['Chile Earthquake Spreads Disaster Around the World', Civil Engineering, Vol. 30, July 1960, p. 88]
...And it is just this most destructive of all types of waves which must have been produced during the Biblical Flood by the 'breaking-up of the fountains of the great deep'! Furthermore, this break-up, with all its attendant destructiveness, apparently continued from the first day of the Flood (Genesis 7:11) through the same period as the great rains from heaven, until both were stopped by God [150 days later] (Genesis 8:2).
[Gen 8:2]:
"Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained;"
d) TREMENDOUS EROSION FROM THE FLOOD'S RAINFALL
[pp. 120-121]
"Great quantities of water were poured down on the earth from the skies, not in the form of a gentle drizzle but as a torrential downpour continuing without ceasing for forty days and nights, all over the world. Speaking metaphorically, the Scriptures say that the 'floodgates of heaven were opened.' This pounding rain would first, by its own impact, begin the work of soil and rock erosion. Modern hydrology has proved that raindrop impact is a very significant factor in the initiation of the erosion phenomenon. As the waters begin to run off to lower levels, already containing a certain amount of sedimentary load to aid in further erosive action by the mechanisms of turbulence and attrition, it would begin to form rivulets. These would run finally to the nearest stream but in the process would deepen their own channels by further erosion. This is the way in which great gullies are formed, often to great depths in a single rainstorm, in the present day. For the uniquely intense rainstorm of the Deluge, the combined processes of raindrop impact, sheet erosion and gully erosion would necessarily have excavated and transported prodigious quantities of earth and rock, even if no other agencies had been available for sediment transfer."
3) MASSIVE WORLDWIDE VOLCANIC, SEISMIC AND TIDAL WAVE ACTIVITY INDICATED
[p. 122]
"Great volcanic explosions and eruptions are clearly implied in the statement that 'all the fountains of the great deep [were] broken up.' [Gen 7:11] This must mean that great quantities of liquids, perhaps liquid rocks or magmas, as well as water (probably steam), had been confined under great pressure below the surface rock structure of the earth since the time of its formation and that this mass now burst forth through great fountains, probably both on the lands and under the seas. By analogy with present phenomena associated with volcanism, there must also have been great earthquakes and tsunamis (popularly known as tidal waves) generated throughout the world. These eruptions and waves would have augmented the Flood waters as well as accomplished great amounts of geologic work directly."
[pp. 126-127]
"Further inferences from the Biblical record of the Deluge are that there were great amounts of volcanism and great earth movements, both in the early and later stages of the Flood period. That these inferences are supported by the field evidence, at least in a general way, is unquestionable. A great part of the earth's land surface is covered with material originally ejected from volcanic cones or vents.
'Rocks formed by volcanic action are called igneous, from a Latin term for '''fire.''' Without them, no continent would have assumed anything like its present features. During past geological ages, lava flowed much more freely than now; it not only sprouted from craters, but also pushed upward from immense cracks in the planet's crust. Earth's most stupendous rock formation, stretching for more than a thousand miles along the shores of Canada and Alaska, was squeezed out in such fashion. Oozing lava built great plateaus which now cover 200,000 square miles in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and northern California. An even larger eruption created India's famous Deccan Plateau, whose once molten rock extends as much as 2 miles below the surface. Argentina, South Africa and Brazil have similar plateaus.'
[Gary Webster: "Volcanoes: Nature's Blast Furnaces," Science Digest, Aug. 1956, Vol. 40 no.2, p.4-9]
It is significant, too, that volcanic rocks are found interbedded with sedimentary rocks of all supposed geologic ages, which would correlate with the Biblical implication that the 'fountains of the great deep' continued to pour out their contents throughout the entire Flood period."..
[Scripture indicates that the great volcanic, earthquake activity began with the great 40 day downpour, (Gen 7:1), and that it did not cease until the rain ceased:
[Gen 8:2]:
"Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained" ]
b) EVIDENCES OF PAST VOLCANISM TESTIFY TO A WORLDWIDE FLOOD
[pp. 126-127]
"Further inferences from the Biblical record of the Deluge are that there were great amounts of volcanism and great earth movements, both in the early and later stages of the Flood period. That these inferences are supported by the field evidence, at least in a general way, is unquestionable. A great part of the earth's land surface is covered with material originally ejected from volcanic cones or vents.
'Rocks formed by volcanic action are called igneous, from a Latin term for '''fire.''' Without them, no continent would have assumed anything like its present features. During past geological ages, lava flowed much more freely than now; it not only sprouted from craters, but also pushed upward from immense cracks in the planet's crust. Earth's most stupendous rock formation, stretching for more than a thousand miles along the shores of Canada and Alaska, was squeezed out in such fashion. Oozing lava built great plateaus which now cover 200,000 square miles in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and northern California. An even larger eruption created India's famous Deccan Plateau, whose once molten rock extends as much as 2 miles below the surface. Argentina, South Africa and Brazil have similar plateaus.'
[Gary Webster: "Volcanoes: Nature's Blast Furnaces," Science Digest, Vol. 42, Nov. 1957, p. 5]
It is significant, too, that volcanic rocks are found interbedded with sedimentary rocks of all supposed geologic ages, which would correlate with the Biblical implication that the 'fountains of the great deep' continued to pour out their contents throughout the entire Flood period...
[Gen 8:2]:
"Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained"]
...It is not only on the land, of course, that evidences of volcanic action are found.
'The present status of knowledge of the sea floor in the Pacific Ocean area is such that a surprising amount of evidence of large-scale faulting, mountain-building, volcanic activity, and large-scale crustal movements is known; this is a marked departure from earlier assumptions, which, because of lack of information, held that this vast area had been relatively calm during [so called] geologic time.'
[Edwin L. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 299.]
It is well known, of course, that most of the oceanic islands, both above and below present ocean level, were primarily of volcanic origin."
ii) THE EVIDENCES OF PAST VOLCANISM CANNOT BE EXPLAINED BY UNIFORMITARIANISM [137-139]:
"...A great part of the earth's surface rocks are igneous in origin, in many different forms, and are often of tremendous extent, sometimes on the surface, sometimes intruded between sedimentary rocks, [= forced entry of molten igneous rock, (magma), into a rock formation], sometimes forming the base of a sedimentary series...
These igneous rocks are found all over the world in great profusion. Often they are found intruding into previously deposited sedimentary rocks or on the surface covering vast areas of earlier deposits. The Columbia Plateau, of the northwestern United States, is a tremendous lava plateau of almost incredible thickness covering about 200,000 square miles...
'The physiographic history of this province begins with the ancient surface before the lavas were erupted. This is known to have been locally rough, even mountainous, partly by the fact that some of the old peaks rose above the lava flood, which was at least several thousand feet deep.'
[N. M. Fenneman: Physiography of the Western United States (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1931), p. 229.]
...The great shields of the world, notably in this continent the great Canadian shield, are mainly granites and other igneous rocks.
'Two million square miles of the great Canadian Shield region are covered by [so called] Pre-Cambrian rocks composed in part of pink granite-gneiss that was originally intruded in the form of batholiths during [so called] vast mountain making upheavals.' [batholiths = great subterranean masses of intruded igneous rock]
[R.C. Hussey: Historical Geology (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1947), p. 54]
...These phenomena are common all over the world and account for a substantial percentage of the earth's surface rocks, in addition to the intrusive rocks found in every part of the geologic column and the igneous masses underlying the sedimentaries.
But the only modern process at all pertinent to these phenomena is that of volcanism, which in its present character could not possibly have produced these great igneous formations. There are perhaps 500 active volcanoes in the world, and possibly three times that many extinct volcanoes. But nothing ever seen by man in the present era can compare with whatever the phenomena were which caused the formation of these tremendous structures. The principle of uniformity breaks down completely at this important point of geologic interpretation. Some manifestation of catastrophic action alone is sufficient."
c) EVIDENCES OF PAST EARTHQUAKE ACTIVITY TESTIFY TO A WORLDWIDE FLOOD
[pp. 127-128]
"With regard to earth movements, it is likewise common knowledge that the rock formations of the earth exhibit everywhere profound evidence of great tectonic activity [movements in the earth's crust]. Most of the sedimentary strata (not to mention the still more disturbed igneous and metamorphic rocks) have been tilted, folded and faulted on a tremendous scale. It is extremely interesting, in light of the Biblical suggestion of uplift of the lands at the conclusion of the Deluge period, to note that most of the present mountain ranges of the world are believed to have been uplifted (on the basis of fossil evidence) during the [so called] 'Pleistocene' or [so called] late 'Pliocene'. Flint makes this fact the basis for his 'topographic control' theory of continental glaciation.
'Despite the fact that references are scattered and the data have never been fully assembled, the worldwide distribution of these movements is striking. In North America late 'Pliocene' or 'Pleistocene' movements involving elevations of thousands of feet are recorded in Alaska and in the Coast Ranges of southern California... In Europe the Scandinavian Mountains were created from areas of very moderate relief and altitude in '''late Tertiary''' time... The Alps were conspicuously uplifted in 'Pleistocene' and late 'pre-Pleistocene' time. In Asia there was great early 'Pleistocene' uplift in Turkestan, the Pamira, the Caucasus, and central Asia generally. Most of the vast uplift of the Himalayas is ascribed to the '''latest Tertiary''' and 'Pleistocene'. In South America the Peruvian Andes rose at least 5000 feet in post-'Pliocene' time... In addition to these tectonic movements many of the high volcanic cones around the Pacific border, in western and central Asia and in eastern Africa, are believed to have been built up to their present great heights during the 'Pliocene' and 'Pleistocene'.'
[R. F. Flint: Glacial Geology and the Pleistocene Epoch (New York, Wiley, 1947), pp. 514-515]
"Since the 'Pliocene' and 'Pleistocene' are supposed to represent the most recent geological epochs, except that of the present, and since nearly all of the great mountain areas of the world have been found to have fossils from these times near their summits, there is no conclusion possible other than that the mountains (and therefore the continents of which they form the backbones) have all been uplifted essentially simultaneously and [even according to the evolutionary time scale] quite recently. Surely this fact accords well with the Biblical statements."
ii) EVIDENCE OF MASSIVE MOVEMENTS IN THE EARTH'S CRUST CANNOT BE EXPLAINED BY UNIFORMITARIANISM
Based on predictable rates of erosion, mountain ranges such as the Rocky Mountains should not exist today if you go back millions of years.
[pp. 139-142]
"Another major geologic phenomenon, encountered all over the world, is the evidence of tremendous crustal movements that must have occurred in the past. Great thicknesses of rocks have apparently been uplifted thousands of feet; strata have buckled, folded, some times been thrust laterally or completely overturned on a gigantic scale.
The great Rocky Mountain chain, especially as developed in the Southern Rockies, is essentially a series of great folds. In the eastern part of this country, the Appalachian system of mountains is believed to be the uplifted and eroded remnant of a great geosynclinal trough, in which a thickness of some 40,000 feet of sedimentary rocks was deposited. These mountains reveal a very involved assortment of gigantic faults, folds, and thrusts. Similar phenomena are found in nearly every region of the world. The crust of the earth seems to have been distorted, fractured, elevated, depressed and contorted in almost every conceivable way at some time or times in the past. This is further attested by the great areas of metamorphism, in which the original sedimentary of crystalline rocks have been completely changed in form as a result of the gigantic stresses acting in the crust. Schistosity [changes resulting in parallel splitting] in crystalline rocks is also attributed to these causes.
Nor are these phenomena, which are too familiar to everyone even to require documentation, limited to the land surfaces.
'It was once supposed that the deep oceans had remained dark, lifeless, and unchanged, save for the finest rain of sediment, since the world began; but new knowledge has quite dispelled this view. Across the ocean floor geophysicists have now traced great fractures, scarps and rifts, have found scattered volcanic peaks and ranges, and have charted canyons cut by slumps and flows of mud on the continental margins.'
[J. Tuzo Wilson: 'The Crust,' in The Earth and Its Atmosphere, E. R. Gates, ed., (New York, Basic Books, Inc., 1957), p. 63]
...Most, if not all, of these diastrophic features [= geologic deformations] of the earth's crust are believed to be associated with orogenies [= processes of mountain forming]; that is, periods of 'mountain-building.' Says Dr. W. H. Bucher:
'The most conspicuous and perhaps also the most significant structural features of the face of the earth are the great belts of folded mountains, like those of the Himalayas, the Andes, the Urals and the Appalachians, the so-called orogenic belts. Along these long and relatively narrow zones, great thicknesses of dominantly marine sediments have been squeezed together and thrust one upon the other to form highly elongated folds with axes essentially parallel to that of the belt.'
[W. H. Bucher: "Fundamental Properties of Orogenic Belts," Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Vol. 32, August 1951, p. 514]
...It is here that the principle of uniformity would appear to be most inadequate. If it were valid, surely a feature of such prime importance in the interpretation of earth history as diastrophism and orogeny should be explainable in terms of some sort of present-day observable and measurable process which is now producing incipient earth movements of similar kind. But so far is this from being the case that geologists are still utterly unable to agree on even a satisfactory hypothesis of mountain-building! L.H. Adams, of the Carnegie Institute, said some years ago in his retiring address as president of the American Geophysical Union, concerning these problems of orogeny:
'Many attempts to answer these questions have engaged the attention of the best minds, but the existing answers leave much to be desired. Complicated mechanisms in great variety have been adduced, but in all instances cogent objections have been raised.' ...
[L. H. Adams: "Some Unsolved Problems of Geophysics," Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Vol. 28, October, 1947, p. 673]
...All this, again, bears very heavily against the notion of uniformity. Furthermore, these orogenic processes cannot be shoved back into the dim recesses of early terrestrial history but must very recently have been immensely potent. All the major mountain ranges of the present world evidently were uplifted within the most recent eras of geologic history. It has already been pointed out [by evolutionists] that fossil evidence indicates most of the great mountain chains date from the ['supposed'] 'Pleistocene' or late 'Pliocene' at the earliest. The geologic and archaeologic chronologies of the fossil beds which have yielded remains and artifacts of human beings likewise date in many instances from the 'Pleistocene' and even perhaps the 'Pliocene'. After considering all the human fossil evidence, Zeuner concludes:
'One point is apparent from the table, that the evolution of Homo is not entirely confined to the 'Pleistocene'. We find the definitely human Pithecanthropus group in the lower 'Pleistocene', and there is some suggestive evidence for the Sapiens-stock going back to this time. If this proves to be true, the Homo-stock as a whole must date from well within the 'Pliocene'.'
[F. E. Zeuner: Dating the Past (2nd Ed., London, Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1950), p. 303]
...Of course, we are not subscribing to the evolutionary interpretation of these evidences, but it is significant that the geologic and paleontologic data seem to prove that man lived during the times when deposits were being laid down which are now found capping the mountains and thus that the mountain-making processes, with all their associated phenomena - the faults, folds, rifts, thrusts, etc. - have been active within geologically very recent times. But they are not active now, at least not measurably so! And yet the processes associated with mountain-building, and their results, are considered by all geophysicists and geomorphologists to be absolutely basic to the interpretation of earth history. Here, then, is another extremely important gap in the range of applicability of the so-called law of uniformity, whereby present processes are supposed to suffice to explain all geologic phenomena!"
