As discussed in the section on archaeology, the oldest historic records on earth date back no further than between two to three thousand years BC. A study of the numerous Biblical chronologies available dates the earth to a maximum of 10 000 years with most chronologies advocating an age of 6000 years. Even if we accept a Biblical age of 10 000 years, the discrepancy between 10 000 years and the scientifically accepted age of 4, 560 000 000 years is vast. Given such vast ages, how do scientists calculate the age of the earth? The age of the earth's strata can be derived by applying the principle of Uniformitarianism. The concept that the processes in evidence in the world today are assumed to have existed in the past and a study of present events can be used to create models of past events.

For example, it can be observed how quickly sediments accumulate in a shallow lake. Assuming that we find that the rate of accumulation is 0.1 cm/year over our study period, then we could use this figure to calculate the approximate age of a sedimentary geological feature which we consider to have developed under similar circumstances. A layer of sediment 10m thick could then have taken 10 000 years to form. Given periods of erosion which would have removed sediment, it is easy to see that geological age can be considered vast indeed.

The conclusion reached in the above scenario is, however, only correct if the uniformitarian principle applies. What if there had been a catastrophic flood, that washed vast amounts of sediment into our shallow lake within one day? As is all too apparent from the media today, whole villages can be buried in sediment in an instant after catastrophic floods. Our assumption that the sedimentary layer took 10 000 years to develop might be based on logic, but it need not necessarily be right. It could have formed rapidly. In fact, all models of age determination using the uniformitarian principle suffer the same restraints and can at best be used as guides. Other models besides sedimentology include the rate of orogeny (mountain uplift), erosion of continents, accumulation of volcanic ejecta, biological criteria such as mutation rates and accumulated change over time, the earth's cooling rate, rate of build up of ocean salinity, and many more. Interestingly, the more data is accumulated, the more the various ages come into conflict. In fact, recent arguments on rates of evolution have produced a storm of scientific papers in the world's top journals where scientists are slashing millions if not hundreds of millions of years out of the geological time frame in order to accommodate their ideas. If this is acceptable in the scientific fraternity, then surely it is an admittance that their time frame is not as rigid as they would have us believe.

The Geological Column in the Light of Genesis

For centuries, the Christian world accepted the Biblical story of a flood. A change from this Diluvial interpretation only occurred during the 19th Century as a result of ideas expounded by Lyell, Darwin, and others. The work of Charles Lyell particularly influenced contemporary thinking regarding the origin of strata, and the concept of the catastrophic flood was replaced by deposition governed by the Uniformitarian principle. In recent times, a new Science of Diluvialism has emerged and is making rapid strides. Many geological features are more consistent with catastrophic formation rather than slow formation over millions of years. This has obvious time implications. Sedimentary rocks are dated by the fossils within them, and not by radiometric dating. Such a dating system is at best arbitrary and based on circular reasoning. Obviously the material comprising the strata can be much older than the fossil embedded therein, just as an animal buried in the soil is not as old as the soil it is buried in.

The Geological Column and Age Implications

The currently accepted model for the formation of the geological column is that expounded in the evolutionary paradigm. According to this paradigm, each layer of the column represents a period in the earth's history comprising millions of years of time. (See Figure 1.3) It is supposed that the first micro-organisms evolved between 2000 and 3000 million years ago, and that a record of their existence can be found in the Precambrian rocks. However, the oldest layer of the column that contains macrofossils is the Cambrium and is estimated to be some 600 million years old.

Superimposed layers of this column are younger and contain different fossils, but each layer was once considered to represent the surface of the earth where life was enacted much as it is today. Moreover, the Uniformitarian principle implies that processes occurring today occurred in the past, including normal erosion by water, wind and weathering processes. Evidence for aerial exposure of the various layers of the column is, however, lacking, and the flat contacts between layers belie the supposition that they once represented the surface of the earth.

It is significant that we find only young sediments in the sea. The ocean floor reveals no evidence of great age; the older layers such as the Paleozoic are missing. The flood model explains the origin of the water which produced the flood as coming from the "Great Deep". The original Hebrew word ("tehom") can also be translated as "sea". It could therefore have been water from the sea which poured inland because the sea-bed itself was suddenly raised. Great quantities of marine material are to be found on all the continents. It is as if the contents of the oceans were simply dumped on the land and the accompanying turbidites buried fossils in strata. There followed a series of major upheavals as the topography of the surface was reformed. The net result being that surface material was washed back into the sea as young sediments. Today we find a massive geological column on the land areas, but very little sediment beneath the sea. Remember that at least three quarters of this planet is covered by water.

There is a suggestion that the sediments are being absorbed under the Tectonic plates as the continents are moving apart. Standard geology postulates a very slow movement of the continents, at a rate of 2 cm per year. At the rate of which sediment is being washed into the sea, that crack could not have opened up, as the crack would have been filled two-and-one-half times faster than it formed. It is conceivable therefore, that the continents separated very rapidly as a post-flood phenomenon.

Geology teaches that millions of years are required to form geological features such as beaches and other erosional features. The appearance of new islands, such as Surtsey in the North Atlantic in recent years, belies this standpoint as, apparently, mature beaches appeared on that island within months. Even vast amounts of stalagmitic material can form in months, as was discovered during a pumping operation in the USA.

A Model for Catastrophic Formation of the Column

One of the best areas of the world to view a section through the Paleozoic portion of the geological column is the Grand Canyon. Here it can be seen that the various layers lie like vast flat sheets one on top of each other, and each flat layer covers thousands of square kilometers. If these layers represent periods in the earth's history, then one would expect to find evidence in the form of river channels, valleys, and erosional features between them, but these are lacking.

In the Grand Canyon series, rocks of the Ordovician and Silurian periods are missing (an unconformity), and standard geology accepts that their layers were removed from the record by erosion. The Ordovician layer that was supposedly eroded away represents some 100 million years, which in itself presents a further problem.

Standard geological publications put current erosion rates at between 6 to 1900 cm per 1000 years. Most of the eroded material is carried away by rivers, and ends up as sediment in the oceans. Even at the lower figure of 6 cm per 1000 years, it would take a mere 10.2 million years for the continents to be eroded down to sea level. (The continents would have eroded down to sea-level 340 times in the time period that they supposedly existed.) As Lindale put it in his article on the survival of paleoforms:


"Even if it is accepted that estimates of the contemporary rate of degradation of the land surface are several orders too high to provide an accurate yardstick of erosion in the geological past, there has surely been ample time for the very ancient features preserved in the present landscape to have been eradicated several times over. Yet the silcrated land surface of central Australia has survived perhaps 20 million years of weathering and erosion under varied climatic conditions as has the laterad surface of the northern areas of the continent. The laterad surface of the Gulf region of South Australia is even more remarkable, for it has persisted, through some 200 million years of epigene attack... The survival of the paleoforms is to some degree an embarrassment to all the commonly accepted models of landscape development."
(American Journal of Science, Vol. 276: 81-1976)


A feature of the column, as represented in the Grand Canyon series, is that it is graded coarse to fine - the lower portion consisting largely of residual gravel's, followed by lime and shale deposits. This cannot be easily reconciled with the Uniformitarian model, but is precisely what one would expect if the various layers came into existence catastrophically. One possible mechanism of formation is through turbidimetric deposition.

Turbidites are underwater mud flows set off by catastrophic events such as earthquakes, and would be expected in a Diluvial event as described in Genesis. The various layers have flat contact zones, and missing layers can be readily explained without invoking periods of erosion. The quantity of source material would determine the thickness and the area covered. The absence of a layer would simply mean that there was not enough source material to cover the same areas as the under and overlying strata.

Such a phenomenon was fully documented when, in 1929, a turbidity current was set off by an earthquake. The speed of this flow was recorded as it broke a series of undersea cables. This flow covered some 200 miles in the first 59 minutes and 500 miles in 13 hours 17 minutes.

It is obvious that a short chronology for the formation of the geological column would destroy the very pillars on which the evolutionary paradigm rests and the evidence needs to be carefully weighed.

SOURCE

This article was excerpted from the book The Genesis Conflict by Dr. Walter Veith. To order the complete book see Amazing Discoveries web site. Amazing Discoveries Dr. Walter J. Veith, © 2000 Canadian Address: PO Box 189, 7101C - 120th Street, Delta, BC V4E 2A9, Canada Tel: (604) 572-9457 - Fax: (604) 599-9949 US Address: P.O. Box 4480, Blaine, WA, 98231-4480, USA