Geologic Evidence for a Worldwide Flood
Evidence from Marine Fossils
Marine fossils are found on the mountaintops of every continent.
- Mount Everest has marine fossils near its peak.
- The Alps in Austria contain marine fossils.
- Whale fossils have been found over 400 feet above sea level north of lake Ontario, more than 500 feet above sea level in Vermont, and 600 feet above sea level in Montreal.
- Whale fossils are also found in the Andes Mountains of South America in mass whale graveyards indicating rapid burial. At different locations in Peru over 500 whale fossils have been found. In the photo below of the hill Cerro Queso Grande over 60 whale fossils were found. Of all of the fossils found there is no evidence of scavenging or predatory attacks. (27, pg. 1)
How did all these marine fossils get up on the mountains?
- The only answer is that at one time in the history of the earth, all of these mountains had to be covered with water.
There are two explanations for how the ocean waters covered the mountains.
1. Biblical explanation: The Genesis worldwide flood.
2. Evolution explanation: The continents sank underneath the oceans and came back up.
There are nearly 300 legends of a worldwide flood. There are no legends of continents sinking beneath the ocean. Also, no one ever observed or recorded a continent sinking.
Evidence from Fossil Graveyards 
Vast fossil graveyards are found all over the world. Sometimes there are thousands, or more, creatures buried and fossilized together.
- How does something get fossilized? Not by long, slow processes. An organism must be covered rapidly by the sediments to keep out scavengers and oxygen.
- It would take a catastrophic event to bury thousands of animals in these graveyards, which are located all over the world. Large fossil graveyards have been discovered in New Mexico, Canada, Wyoming, Tanzania, Belgium, Mongolia, the Gobi Desert of Central Asia, and many other places.
- Pictured on the right is the Morrison Formation (sedimentary rock), extending from Canada into New Mexico.
- The most common fossils are clams found in the closed position. Snail fossils are also found.
- How do so many creatures all get buried and fossilized in one location? It would take a large catastrophic event to bury so many animals quickly, and these fossil graveyards are found worldwide. This is consistent with the Biblical description of the Genesis Flood.
Geologic Processes
When we turn to our geology books, we are led to believe that large canyons take thousands or millions of years to form by rivers running through them. Is this true?
Pyroclastic Flows - Mount Saint Helens
On May 18, 1980 the volcano Mount Saint Helens erupted.
- At 8:32 am an earthquake of magnitude 5.1 struck Mount St. Helens. This resulted in the largest observed landslide in history.
- The entire side of the mountain slid down into Spirit Lake causing a wave over 800 feet high onto the north shore of the lake.
- Following the volcanic blast came tremendous pyroclastic flows (hot gas mixed with volcanic fragments) moving down the mountain at speeds of over 70 miles per hour with temperatures over 800 degrees.
- In addition to the pyroclastic flows, there were tremendous mudflows that occurred because of all the snow and ice on top of the mountain that suddenly melted.
- These mudflows flowed off the mountain at over 50 miles per hour with such force that some extended for over 20 miles past the mountain.
What was the effect of all this devastation?
- Many large canyons were created in a very short time.
- One of these canyons was nicknamed the “Little Grand Canyon” because its formations resemble that of the Grand Canyon.
- It is one-fortieth the size of the Grand Canyon. The canyon has plateaus that resemble the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon. It also has side canyons that resemble side canyons found in the Grand Canyon.
- The question is, “How long did it take to make this canyon?”…One day. This fact should call into question the necessity for long ages to make large canyons.
The Scablands in Eastern Washington 
In the eastern part of Washington state there is a large barren area of solid rock called the Scablands.
- Throughout the Scablands are many channels and canyons. Some of these canyons are hundreds of feet deep and extend for over 15 miles in length.
- The locals call these long, deep channels “coulees.”
- Grand Coulee is a well-known channel in the Scablands that contains the Grand Coulee Dam.
The naturalistic interpretation for how channels and canyons form is by long, slow processes.
- For the Scablands it would be rivers carving these formations over millions of years.
- In the early 1900’s, geologist J. Harlan Bretz suggested a catastrophic flood as the cause of the channels and canyons of the Scablands.
Some scientists today fully accept the idea that canyons can be formed by catastrophic events in a short period and that long ages are not necessary.
- The United States Geological Survey states the following on their website: “Such catastrophic floods raced across the southward-dipping plateau a number of times, etching the coulees which characterize this region, now known as the channeled scablands.” (7)
- “U.S. Geological Survey experts have estimated the flow near the dam breach at 10 times more than the combined flow of all the rivers in the world.” (8)
- Stephen Jay Gould makes the following statements:
- “I have questioned the gradualist orthodoxy before…in biological terms. I have argued that gradualism is a culturally conditioned prejudice, not a fact of nature, and I have made a plea for pluralism in concepts of rate. Punctuational change is at least as important as imperceptible accumulation.” (9, pg. 15)
- “Dogmas play their worst role when they lead scientists to reject beforehand a counterclaim that could be tested in nature.” (9, pg. 15)
- “Charles Lyell, the godfather of geologic gradualism, had pulled a fast one in establishing the doctrine of imperceptible change. He had argued that geologists must invoke the invariance (uniformity) of natural law through time in order to study the past scientifically. He then applied the same term – uniformity – to an empirical claim about rates of processes, arguing that change must be slow, steady, and gradual, and that big results can only arise as the accumulation of small changes.” (9, pg. 17)
I agree with Gould. The evidence does not indicate slow processes, rather quick change.
Grand Canyon
The steady-state explanation is that the Colorado River took millions of years to form the Grand Canyon.
However, there are some problems with this interpretation.
- In the picture on the right the red line shows a geologic unconformity.
- An unconformity represents a time in the geologic column where rock layers are missing.
- This unconformity in the Grand Canyon divides rock layers with fossils from those with no fossils.
- Unconformities are found everywhere across the world.
- According to the USGS this unconformity in the Grand Canyon is around a 1.2 billion year gap.
- There is no sign of erosion between the two layers, which means they were laid down rapidly one on top of the other.
- How could a river that is only several hundred feet wide have enough energy to carve out the Grand Canyon, which is over 15 miles wide at parts?
(We just looked at this with the scablands) (Put up comparison transparency’s)
- Where are all the sediments that the Colorado River supposedly pushed out to make the canyon?
- The answer is that the sediments are more than 15 miles out into the gulf.
- It would take a catastrophic movement of water to push this much sediment that far out into the gulf.
- Why does the canyon contain hundreds of thousands of square miles of parallel strata? If the canyon took millions of years to form, then there should be signs of erosion between the strata, but they are not there.
- Parallel strata are formed by large amounts of rapidly running water and mud flows, as observed from Mount Saint Helens, and underwater landslides. (Draw out the plastic nature of the strata and how it formed)
- The top, surface layer is the Kaibab Limestone and is dated to 250 million years ago.
- How can the top surface layer of the Grand Canyon be dated to 250 million years ago?
- What’s been happening for the past 250 million years?
- Finally, the Native Indian population (Havasupai Tribe) has a local flood legend to describe the formation of the Grand Canyon.
- “Before there were any people on earth there were two gods. Tochapa of goodness and Hokomata of evil. Tochapa had a daughter named Pu-keh-eh, whom he hoped would become the mother of all living. Hokomata the evil was determined that no such thing should take place, and he covered the world with a great flood. Tochapa the good felled a great tree and hollowed out the trunk. He placed Pu-keh-eh in the hollowed trunk and when the water rose and flooded the earth she was secure in her improvised boat. Finally the flood waters fell and mountain peaks emerged. Rivers were created; and one of them cut the great gushing fissure, which became the Grand Canyon. Pu-keh-eh in her log came to rest on the new earth. She stepped forth and beheld an empty world. When the land became dry, a great golden sun rose in the east and warmed the earth and caused her to conceive. In time, she gave birth to a male child. Later a waterfall caused her to conceive and she gave birth to a girl. From the union of these two mortal children came all the people on the earth. The first were the Havasupai, and the voice of Tochapa spoke to them and told them to live forever in peace in their canyon of good earth and pure water where there would always be plenty for all!” (23)
- This of course is a recognizable version of the worldwide flood of Noah’s day.
The conclusion about the Grand Canyon is that the geological evidence supports a rapid formation and not millions of years.
Rapid Sedimentation 
Most textbooks claim that when we observe many thin layers of sediment (called lamina), sometimes only millimeters thick, that it took a season, a year, or years to lay each of the layers down.
- The picture on the right shows a canyon containing thousands of thin layers. If someone did not know when it was formed, the naturalistic interpretation might be that the canyon is thousands of years old.
- However, this canyon was formed in one day by a mudflow from Mount St. Helens in 1982.
Note the thin layers of sedimentation in the Mt. Saint Helens’ canyon, which were formed rapidly.
(Liquefaction and turbidites are two more observable evidences for rapid sedimentation.)
Liquefaction
Liquefaction is the process of making or becoming liquid. During earthquakes water saturated sediments can break apart and form into a thick mud. (Like wiggling your toes in wet sand)
- The liquefied sediment not only moves about beneath the surface but may also rise through fissures and erupt as mud boils and mud volcanoes.
- Slight differences in density, size, or shape of particles will cause them to fall at slightly different speeds. Their relative positions will change until the water’s velocity drops below a certain speed or until nearly identical sized particles are adjacent to each other, so they will fall at the same speed.
- This sorting produces the layering typical in sedimentary rocks.
A worldwide flood would have caused massive liquefaction to occur and leave thinly layered sediments rapidly.
Liquefaction has been observed in many recent earthquakes. Some of these earthquakes include:
- Alaska, 1964
- Niigata, Japan, 1964
- Loma Prieta, USA, 1989
- Kobe, Japan, 1995
Turbidites
Turbidites are the result of catastrophic water currents resulting in underwater landslides.
- In 1927, an earthquake triggered an underwater landslide off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The underwater avalanche covered an area of 40,000 square miles leaving a three-foot deposit of sediment in just hours.
- The result was a layer of sediment laid down rapidly.
- Turbidites are similar in character to many solidified rocks that have been studied in the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, which geologists thought had been deposited by calm waters.
- They now recognize that many, if not most of the rocks on land, are actually the result of turbidites.
- A layer, called the Tapeats Sandstone, covers most of North America.
- It would have taken a great underwater event to create such a formation.
Summary of Geologic Processes
We have just covered four observable actions that create rapid sedimentation over large areas, 1) Rapid erosion, 2) Pyroclastic flows, 3) Liquefaction, and 4) Turbidites.
- None of these geologic actions require long periods of time and all four are known to have caused most of the sedimentation on the earth.
Now we need to ask the question: Are long periods of time necessary for what we observe geologically?
- The answer is no.
- It has been observed that large canyons can form rapidly. It is also known that many thin layers (lamina) can form rapidly.
Similar to Stephen Jay Gould’s comments above, Warren D. Allmon (Cornell University) in Science magazine writes the following about uniformitarianism, “As is now increasingly acknowledged, however, Lyell also sold geology some snake oil. He convinced geologists that because physical laws are constant in time and space and current processes should be consulted before resorting to unseen processes, it necessarily follows that all past processes acted at essentially their current rates (that is, those observed in historical time). This extreme gradualism has led to numerous unfortunate consequences, including the rejection of sudden or catastrophic events in the face of positive evidence for them, for no reason other than that they were not gradual.” (12, pg. 122).
But what about other geological events such as coal and oil formation?
Coal Formation
Coal formation from an evolutionary perspective:
- Coal was formed from plant life buried in the Earth millions of years ago. “The Coal Age,” which ended about 280 million years ago, was when the great coal beds of the world formed. After the plant life died, it fell into swamp water where it partially decomposed into a slimy, colloidal mass and formed peat. As the seas advanced and receded in cycles over the earth, they deposited heavy layers of sandstone, shale, and other rocks on top of the peat. The increased pressure caused the buried peat to dry and harden into coal. (10, pg.518)
- Most coal deposits occur in the same geologic strata known as the Carboniferous period.
- A coal seam is a flat layer having the same surface area as the swamp in which it originally accumulated.
The Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina is one of the largest modern peat swamps. It contains an average thickness of 6-feet of peat.
- However, unless this swamp lasts for millions of years, even it’s dense growth is insufficient to produce a coal seam as thick as some of the seams in Pennsylvania.
- Individual coal beds range in thickness from a few inches to 800 feet (10, pg. 643)
There is strong evidence against long ages for coal formation.
- Polystrate fossils, tree fossils that sometimes span many coal seems (over 30 feet tall), are found all over the world.
- If coal took millions of years to form, then none of these polystrate fossils should be there. They would have rotted in just years. This is observable evidence that coal can form rapidly. Other scientists have noted that the trees found in coal beds did not grow there, they were most likely washed there by some catastrophic event, such as a flood.
- If coal is formed by slow natural processes why aren’t there deposits at all levels, instead of primarily at the “Carboniferous Level?”
The devastation at Mount St. Helens (the blast, landslide, giant water wave, mud flows, etc.) caused many trees from the dense forest around the mountain to be washed into Spirit Lake, estimates up to one million logs.
- Over the past 20 years, many of these logs have turned upright and sunk to the bottom of the lake. Scuba divers have been to the bottom of the lake and noted that the trees have their roots cut just like the polystrate fossils found in coal beds.
- None of those trees grew at the bottom of Spirit Lake; they were all washed there by the catastrophic event.
- It has also been observed that a three-foot-thick layer of peat has formed at the bottom of the lake from a mixture of bark and other elements.
The naturalistic explanation is that it takes thousands of years for swamp vegetation to decay and slowly turn to peat and then millions of years for the peat to slowly turn to coal.
- We now know this is not true, it can happen in a very short time as evidenced at Mount Saint Helens.
- Experiments by Dr. George R. Hill and Dr. Don C. Adams at the University of Utah have shown that plant matter can be turned into coal in a matter of hours. (24, pg. 296)
Do we need long ages for what we observe geologically?…No.
Oil Formation
Oil formation from an evolutionary perspective:
- “Complete agreement has not yet been reached as to how liquid petroleum is produced in nature. It is generally believed that the remains of the plants and animals, when buried in mud, develop a reducing environment which protects them from destruction by oxidation.” (19, pg. 641)
- “Geologists generally agree that crude oil was formed over millions of years from the remains of tiny aquatic plants and animals that lived in ancient seas. There may be bits of brontosaurus thrown in for good measure, but petroleum owes its existence largely to one-celled marine organisms. As these organisms died, they sank to the seabed. Usually buried with sand and mud, they formed an organic-rich layer that eventually turned to sedimentary rock.” (20)
In 1971, in an article titled “Converting Organic Wastes to Oil,” published by the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Hayden R Appell, Y. C. Fu and Sam Friedman reported that petroleum can be produced from organic matter in only 20 minutes.
A $22.4 million proposal was approved in Western Australia for the world’s first plant to make oil from sewage sludge. The sludge is heated without oxygen to 4500 C in one reactor, and then in a second reactor, the resultant vapors are allowed to contact the residue from the first. This speeds up their breakdown into a diesel grade fuel oil. The process, which requires no outside substances, essentially involves heating without oxygen.
The technology, described as one that “mimics nature,” produces oil in much the same way that nature produces oil, but is completed in around 30 minutes.
Again, do we need long ages for what we observe geologically?…No.
CONCLUSION
Long Geological Ages?
The idea that long ages are necessary to describe the earth’s history is unfounded. It is not Biblical nor is it based on observable science. The necessity for long ages only comes from the idea of evolution. Each of the following geologic features has been observed or can be explained in short time periods.
- Coal and Oil
- The formation of large canyons in days vs. millions of years
- Sedimentation being laid down in days vs. millions of years
- Nearly all of the great mountain areas of the world have been found to have marine fossils near their summits. A conclusion drawn from this observation is that the mountains have all been uplifted essentially simultaneously and quite recently.
- Even secular scientists are beginning to question the theories of uniformitarianism (Gould and Allman).
The Bible warns that in the last days scoffers will come who willfully forget the doctrine of judgment and ignore the Biblical account of a worldwide flood.
2PE 3:3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,
2PE 3:4 and saying, “ Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”
2PE 3:5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
2PE 3:6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.
2 Peter 3:3-6 (NASB)
Do we need long ages to support what we observe geologically?
- The answer is NO!
- The creation of geologic structures and formations can be explained as the result of catastrophic events in a short time period.
Is it possible to combine the Bible and evolution?
Did God use evolution as part of His creative process?
- Not according to the Bible and the description of the Genesis Flood.
- The Bible clearly supports a worldwide flood, which eliminates the possibility of long ages.
Plate Tectonics (Pangaea vs. Bible verse on land rising and sinking)
- Shouldn’t the weather have eroded the Himalayas quicker than they can rise if plate tectonics is true? Likewise is erosion quicker than sedimentation?
Dating Methods (Index Fossils vs. Strata Layer vs. Radiometric)
- If the earth is so old why are there still radioactive materials left?
Dinosaurs (Job, Dragon Legends, Evidence of living with people)
