I am not rejoining the reflector just yet, but I will respond to criticisms as
long as I am copied at my current e-mail address. The entire post will come
in 3 parts. Tony's questions is one many christians asked, so instead of just
sending it to him privately, I will send it to the reflector. This post and
others on the issue can be found on my (very underconstruction and having many
problems) WWW page http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/DMD.htm
Tony Jester wrote:
>What I really meant to ask, more specifically is:
>
> what is the evidence they (Christians trained in geology)
> use to "prove" that the sedimentary layers of the geologic
> column were deposited over millions of years - and why
> couldn't these layers have been deposited by the Noaic flood?
>
>I guess it's obvious that I believe they were deposited by the
>flood, but I want to know, from a Christian trained in geology, is
>why this could not have been so.
>
>Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
Here is more help than you want,
glenn
**oldt post belew**
The Geologic Column and Its Implications to the Flood Part 1
Glenn R. Morton
Copyright 1995
This is intended for the private use of the reflector
participants and selected friends. Reflector members may keep one
copy. Please don't send this anywhere else. I am thinking about
turning this into an article. Although I am not sure at this
point who would publish it.
I recently had a private discussion with a gentleman on the
reflector concerning the nature of the Haymond beds in
Southwestern Texas. The issues which this raised might be of some
interest to the reflectorites.
The Haymond beds consist of 15,000 alternating layers of sand
and shale. The sands have several characteristic sedimentary
features which are found on turbidite deposits. Turbidites are
deep water deposits in which each sand layer is deposited in a
brief period of time, by a submarine 'landslide" (I am trying to
avoid jargon here) and the shale covering it is deposited over a
long period of time. I made the comment that one feature of
this deposit made it an excellent argument for an old earth and
local flood.
Earle F. McBride (McBride, 1969, p. 87-88) writes:
"Two thirds of the Haymond is composed of a repetitious
alternation of fine- and very fine-grained olive brown
sandstone and black shale in beds from a millimeter to 5 cm
thick. The formation is estimated to have more than 15,000
sandstone beds greater than 5 mm thick." p. 87.
"Tool-mark casts (chiefly groove casts), flute casts
and flute-lineation casts are common current-formed sole
marks. Trace fossils in the form of sand-filled burrows are
present on every sandstone sole, but nearly absent within
sandstone beds." p. 88
I pointed out that if the all the sedimentary record had to be
deposited in a year long flood of Noah, then given that the
entire geologic column in this area is 5000 meters thick, and
that the Haymond beds are 1300 m thick, 1300/5000*365 days = 95
days for the Haymond beds to be deposited. Since there are
15,000 of these layers, then 15,000/95 days = 157 layers per day
need to be deposited. The problem is that the animals which made
the burrows mentioned above, need some time to re-colonize and
re-burrow the shale. Is it really reasonable to believe that 157
times per day or 6.5 times per hour, for all the burrowers to be
buried, killed, and a new group colonize above them for the
process to be repeated? Even allowing for a daily cycle, would
require 41 years for this deposit to be laid down.
The response surprised me a little. My friend suggested that
all I had proven was that the Haymond beds were not deposited by
the flood but that other beds were. This suggests that we need
to find the flood layer. What I have done is the examine each of
the layers in the Williston Basin of Montana, North Dakota and
southern Canada with the purpose of determining if any of the
layers could have been the flood deposit. I have mentioned
before that the entire geologic column exists in this locale
(contrary to young-earth creationist claims) so there is not
likely to be anything significant missing here. I might mention
that some of the beds I will discuss are quite extensive,
covering large parts of the Western United States. I mention
this because some of the articles refer to regions where the
rocks, deeply buried in North Dakota, come to the surface far
from that area.
This long post is divided into a description of the geologic
column, and then a conclusion. Since there are 15,000 feet of
sedimentary rock, it takes a lot to describe the whole column. I will post
this over three days. Everything is documented for those that want to check
me out. I
WOULD SUGGEST THAT IF YOU GET BORED READING THE DESCRIPTION OF
THE COLUMN, SKIP TO THE CONCLUSION SECTION WHICH IS RELATIVELY
SHORT. (ut it is in the 3rd post) One note on terminology: a formation is a
sequence of beds of different lithologies. A formation may include marine and
continental layers.
THE GEOLOGIC COLUMN
The Cambrian of this region consists of the Deadwood
Formation. This formation consists of a lower sandstone with
scolithus burrows (Wilmarth, Part 1, 1938, p. 578.). These
scolithos burrows are widely found in similar basal sandstones
around the world. They are found in Newfoundland, Scotland,
Antarctica, Greenland always in Cambrian sands. Thus, the basal
sandstone appears to have been the tranquil home for whatever
animal made the scolithus burrows. Sedimentologically, these
basal quartzites are nearly pure sand and must have taken a lot
of time to winnow the shale out from them. It is unlikely that
this winnowing could be accomplished in a yearlong flood with all
its turbulence. There are some trilobites found in the Cambrian
strata.
Above this is a black shale. Shale, due to the very small
particle size requires quiet, tranquil waters for deposition to
take place. This is one of the unrecognized difficulties of
flood geology. Shale, which is approximately 46% of the
geologic column, is by its existence, evidence for tranquil
waters.
Above this is the Ordovician Winnipeg formation. It consists
of a basal sand whose lithology is very similar to that of the
Deadwood scolithus sand, "suggesting that the Deadwood Sandstone
may be a source for the Winnipeg Sandstone."(Bitney, 1983, p.
1330). This would mean that local erosion was the cause of the
sand for the Winnipeg sand rather than a world wide catastrophe.
The Winnipeg does not have scolithus burrows.
Above this is the Icebox shale. Once again a shale
requires still water for deposition.
Above this lies 1300 feet of Ordovician limestone and
dolomite. These are the Red River, Stony Mountain and Stonewall
formations, collectively known as the Bighorn Dolomite. (data
from W. H. Hunt Trust Larson #1 well, Mckenzie Co., North Dakota)
These can not be the flood deposits for a reason of heat. 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 calories 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. Besides, throughout these carbonates are layers upon
layers of burrows (Gerhard, Anderson and Fischer, 1990, p. 513).
These Ordovician carbonates also show many erosional
surfaces. Fossils include graptolites,
gastropods, cephalopods, and corals. The Red River dolomite is
burrowed by some type of animal(Kohm and Louden, 1983, p. 27)
Above the Ordovician carbonates lie the Silurian Interlake
formation. This formation consists of carbonates, anhydrite,
salt, with minor amounts of sand. Layers throughout this deposit
are also burrows and mudcracks from drying out of the layers
(Lobue, 1983, p. 36,37). There are also intact corals of a
totally different type than are alive today. The Paleozoic corals
are belong to one of three groups - only one of which is found in
Mesozoic rocks; the other two became extinct at the end of the
Paleozoic. The four-sided corals are only found in the Paleozoic.
Modern corals of the 6-sided or 8-sided kind are not found until
the Triassic.
Above this are the Devonian formations. The lower Devonian
is the Winnepegosis formation and it consists of a bioclastic
(meaning made up of the shells of dead carbonate producing
animals) limestone, and the upper part is interbedded carbonate
with anhydrite. Mud cracks are also found as are burrows.(Perrin,
1983, p. 54, 57.) There is no sand, no shale so it is hard to see
how this could be the flood deposits. Anhydrite is an evaporitic
mineral and not compatible with a global flood.
The next Devonian bed is the Prairie Evaporite. It consists
of dolomite, salt, gypsum, anhydrite and potash. These are
generally considered evaporitic and thus incompatible with
deposition during a worldwide flood. (Gerhard, Anderson and
Fischer, 1990, p. 515.) There are also oncolites which are the
spherically concentric carbonate depositions, due to algal growth
on shells after the animals die. This takes time.(Wardlaw and
Reinson, 1971, p. 1762). An excellent example of an oncolite is
shown in figure 58 of Dean and Fouch (1983, p. 123). It says.
"Cross section of an oncolite developed around a gastropod-shell
nucleus from Ore Lake, Michigan. Concentric layering is the
result of annual couplets of porous and dense laminae.) Fig. 59
is an example from the Eocene period.
The Devonian Dawson Bay formation is a carbonate which shows
evidence of subaerial erosion (Pound, 1988, p. 879). The evidence
consists of eroded limestone horizons which can't be created
under the ocean. There is also salt cementation. This means
that salt was deposited in the fractures and crevices in the
rock. Halite plugged burrows are found. Numerous erosional
surfaces are found (Dunn, 1983, p. 79,85). Once again, hardly a
result to be expected from the flood.
Next up is the Duperow formation. It also shows signs of
subaerial erosion, salt deposition in the pores, anhydrite
deposition. The deposition of these chemicals are more
consistent with arid environments than with flood environments.
(Dunn, 1974, p. 907). Burrows and stromatolites are found.
(Stromatoliltes are limestone rocks deposited by daily increments
of limestone deposited by algae on a shallow (less than 30 feet)
sea bottom. ( Burke, 1982, p. 554; Altsculd and Kerr, 1983, p. 104).