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Do ancient stalactites really exist?
by Evan Jamieson
I was talking to a friend on campus at Murdoch University, Western Australia. He
had been having trouble with the theory of evolution and its relationship to the
Bible.
Some months previously I had purchased Dr Michael Denton’s book, Evolution:
A Theory in Crisis. My friend read the book in little over a week and came
back rejoicing. All his questions had been answered, and there was renewed faith
in the inerrancy of Scripture.
But he still had a question. Is the earth really young? After all, he had just come
back from touring the caves of Western Australia’s south-west, and had seen
all those stalactites. Didn’t they prove the earth was many thousands, or
even millions, of years old?
I told him to come with me to see some buildings on campus where substantial stalactites
were growing. I asked whether he thought these had taken many thousands of years
to form, or whether perhaps it was a creationist trick to glue them to the undersides
of the buildings.
I remember raising the question of stalactite growth rates at a lecture in my undergraduate
days, only to be told that stalactites growing from buildings were different to
those forming in caves because the concrete offered a ready supply of material and
there was enhanced water flow at localized sites because of redirection of water
by the building’s drainage system. But similar conditions apply for every
stalactite cave. (More information on stalactite growth rates appeared in Creation
magazine, Vol. 9 No. 4.)
Job 12:8: ‘Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee
…’. Stalactites are growing everywhere … shopping
centres, schools, universities, and even in multi-storey car parks.
Whenever you see a white stalactite hanging from a building, look for yourself and
see how many thousands of years old you think that building is.
War shrine lade a limestone cave
While this article was being prepared for Creation magazine, the Herald Sun newspaper
in Melbourne (Australia) reported another occurrence of rapid-forming stalactites.
The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne has been crumbling because of water seepage.
Parts of it are in danger of caving in if it is not repaired quickly.
The Herald Sun’s photographer took pictures of the lower parts of the building,
including photos of many stalactites and stalagmites which have grown beneath the
building since it was constructed in 1934 (see picture at left).
Journalist Michael Harvey said, ‘Massive vaults beneath the terraces resemble
the interior of limestone caves with constant dripping of water producing thousands
of stalactites and stalagmites.’
These ‘thousands of stalactites and stalagmites’ have all grown within
the 59 years since the shrine was built.
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