Geology

If there really was a global flood—as the Bible has always said—then there should be abundant evidence of that fact, right? But what would that evidence look like? And who could be better placed to ‘see’ such evidence than a scientist who studies the way that floods and flowing water shapes landscapes? Join fluvial geomorphologist, Dr Ron Neller, for a fascinating discussion of just some of the evidence that, over a 30-year period, eventually led him to conclude that there has, indeed, been a global flood on Earth—as the Bible describes. ✍️ LINKS AND SHOW NOTES • How landscapes reveal Noah’s Flood – https://creation.com/geomorphology-provides-evidence-for-global-flood [https://creation.com/geomorphology-provides-evidence-for-global-flood] • Flood Expert Finds Evidence for Noah’s Flood – https://youtu.be/-FxhF6HREEw [https://youtu.be/-FxhF6HREEw] • Mount St Helens canyon-carving incident – https://creation.com/lessons-from-mount-st-helens [https://creation.com/lessons-from-mount-st-helens] • Oroville Dam canyon-carving incident – https://creation.com/oroville-dam-spillway-crisis-california [https://creation.com/oroville-dam-spillway-crisis-california] • Lake Missoula canyon-carving incident – https://creation.com/lake-missoula-flood [https://creation.com/lake-missoula-flood] • Sedimentary blankets: Evidence for Noah's Flood – https://youtu.be/u0rYGSqESto [https://youtu.be/u0rYGSqESto] • Sedimentary blankets: Visual evidence for vast continental flooding – https://creation.com/continent-wide-sedimentary-strata [https://creation.com/continent-wide-sedimentary-strata] • Flat gaps between rock layers challenge evolution’s long ages – https://youtu.be/UsYjYl7-qbM [https://youtu.be/UsYjYl7-qbM] • ‘Flat gaps’ in sedimentary rock layers challenge long geologic ages – https://creation.com/flat-gaps [https://creation.com/flat-gaps] • Water gaps are evidence of the global flood – https://creation.com/do-rivers-erode-through-mountains [https://creation.com/do-rivers-erode-through-mountains] • Explaining mismatched rivers – https://creation.com/when-were-mismatched-river-courses-carved [https://creation.com/when-were-mismatched-river-courses-carved] • Geology Questions and Answers – https://creation.com/geology [https://creation.com/geology] • Noah’s Flood Questions and Answers – https://creation.com/noahs-flood-questions-and-answers [https://creation.com/noahs-flood-questions-and-answers] 📚 HELPFUL RESOURCES • Biblical Geology 101 (book) – https://creation.com/s/10-2-675 [https://creation.com/s/10-2-675] • How Noah's Flood Shaped Our Earth (book) – https://creation.com/s/10-2-647 [https://creation.com/s/10-2-647] • Set in Stone: Evidence For Earth’s Catastrophic Past – https://creation.com/s/30-9-622 [https://creation.com/s/30-9-622] • How the Earth was Shaped (streaming) – https://creation.com/s/35-8-629 [https://creation.com/s/35-8-629] • Let the Rocks Speak (streaming) – https://creation.com/s/35-8-641 [https://creation.com/s/35-8-641] • Planetary Cataclysm (streaming) – https://creation.com/s/35-8-581 [https://creation.com/s/35-8-581] • Noah’s Flood: Evidence in Australia – https://creation.com/s/35-8-515 [https://creation.com/s/35-8-515] • Exploring Geology with Mr Hibb (book) – https://creation.com/s/10-1-586 [https://creation.com/s/10-1-586] 💙 SOCIAL MEDIA ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/creationministries [https://www.facebook.com/creationministries] ► TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@creationministries [https://www.tiktok.com/@creationministries] ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationministries [https://www.instagram.com/creationministries] ► X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/creationnews [https://twitter.com/creationnews] ► eNewsletter: https://creation.com/infobytes [https://creation.com/infobytes] 📅 EVENTS We present at hundreds of events around the world each year. To see what events are happening near you, or to request a creation presentation in your Church (or other gathering) visit: https://creation.com/events [https://creation.com/events] Thanks for watching!

Can certain geologic features like tillites, chalk beds and paleosols be explained by a global flood? Skeptics say no. Find out how the Biblical flood makes more sense of the very features used to try and disprove it!

The Bible describes a global flood about 1600 years after creation. The most devastating catastrophe ever recorded would surely leave evidence, wouldn’t it? So what are consequences of Noah’s Flood?

Does it matter whether it was global or local? What does the scripture actually say? If it was a global flood, where’s the evidence for it? These and other questions are answered in this episode.

Uniformitarianism (long shown by creationists to be an inadequate way to explain observable strata worldwide) was once the foundational ‘doctrine’ of the modern geologist. This has now changed to ‘Neo-catastrophism' for many. Why, and does this theory fare any better?

Grand Canyon is often used as evidence for gradualism and evolution, however, examining the canyon shows that catastrophe, rather than time, carved it. Join us as we explore the Canyon via river raft. The geology of Grand Canyon testifies to the massive catastrophe that caused its formation.

Have the continents moved apart? If so, when? Creationist Antonio Snider, the first person to publish on continental drift proposed that the continents separated during the Flood. Today his original idea is backed by cutting-edge computer modelling.

One of the remarkable things about the geologic record is that blankets of sediments cover vast areas of the continents. In his book, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, evolutionary geologist Professor Derek Ager marvelled at the way sedimentary layers extended for thousands of kilometres, even across continents. He was particularly impressed with the chalk beds that form the famous White Cliffs of Dover in Southern England, as these trace all the way to Turkey and Egypt. The strata exposed in the walls of the Grand Canyon provide another example. Some of these sedimentary formations extend thousands of kilometres across North America. Such vast sedimentary layers suggest that geological processes must have occurred in the past that we don’t observe today. Sedimentary deposits forming today are localised and confined to river deltas, lakebeds and along narrow strips of coastline. Sedimentary blankets covering vast areas are exactly what we would expect if the global flood recorded in the Bible actually occurred.

Many people think that the biblical flood of Noah was abandoned because of the evidence. However, history tells a different story. Modern geological thought owes much to a man named Charles Lyell. Lyell, a lawyer, published a book in 1830 called Principles of Geology. Described as a "masterpiece of persuasion", it changed the way people thought about earth's past. According to Lyell, we should only appeal to today's geological processes to explain earth history. However, this approach meant that the global flood recorded in the Bible was automatically ruled out of consideration. Lyell wanted, he wrote, "to free the science [of geology] from Moses". Regrettably, many people have uncritically adopted Lyell's philosophy, without considering how Noah’s flood can help us understand earth history. Lyell changed the way many people think, but his approach was motivated by his anti-biblical philosophy, not an objective study of the evidence. Indeed, it is very difficult to explain earth's history without Noah's Flood.

Uniformitarianism is the concept that only processes observed today (slow sedimentation, slow erosion) should be used to explain the history of the rocks. It has been the primary way geological data has been interpreted for the last 200 years. Learn its anti-biblical origin and see how it has lead geology astray since its inception into mainstream science.

Did you know that the rock layers in the Grand Canyon provide strong evidence for the Biblical Flood? The Grand Canyon, with its distinctive layers exposed in the canyon walls, has been carved through a high plateau. However, if we follow the layers into the eastern part of Arizona, we see the same rock units about a mile lower in elevation. In this area, we see significant folding of the layers. According to conventional geology, this uplift and folding occurred long after the sediments had hardened into rock, so it should have caused significant fracturing of the rocks. But this is not what we find. Instead, it appears that the layers—which supposedly represent 300 million years of earth history—have undergone plastic deformation, without fracturing. This suggests the sediments were soft and unconsolidated when they bent. This contradicts evolutionary earth history, but it fits nicely with the layers forming during the Biblical Flood and being bent before they had become hard rock.

If the biblical flood of Noah happened, what would we expect to find in geology, paleontology and ancient history?

How can a lack of erosion undermine evolutionary ideas of long ages of earth history? Well, when geologists study the boundary between two rock layers, they sometimes conclude that there was a significant time gap between when the lower and upper rock layers were laid down. However, many boundaries don’t show any evidence of elapsed time. The Grand Canyon provides startling examples. One is where the Coconino Sandstone overlies the Hermit Shale. The surface between these rock layers is remarkably flat and smooth—a ‘flat gap’. Yet according to conventional geology, there is a 6 million year gap between these rock layers. The underlying shale is a soft rock, so it should have eroded a lot if exposed for this time. But the Hermit Shale doesn’t show this erosion. This shows that the upper sandstone was deposited on the lower shale so quickly that there was not time for erosion of the shale. Something is obviously wrong with the conventional geological timescale.

Dropstones are rocks that have been carried and dropped into finely grained sediment. For instance, icebergs can carry and drop rocks on the ocean floor, to be covered by further sedimentation. Noah’s flood was a worldwide catastrophe that deposited much of earth’s fossil-bearing rocks. However, within these rocks, we find what appear to be dropstones. This is often interpreted as evidence of previous ice ages. And since you can’t have ice ages occurring during the flood, this has prompted some to claim that dropstones disprove Noah’s flood. However, dropstones can be formed by mechanisms that don’t involve icebergs. For example, floating tree stumps can have rocks entangled within them, which are then dropped on the ocean floor. Moreover, recent research in the journal “Marine Geology” has shown that a large seaweed known as kelp has a surprising ability to carry and drop sizeable rocks. So dropstones don’t disprove Noah’s flood.

‘Mud cracks’, as they are commonly called, form when muddy sediment is exposed to the air and dries out. This causes the mud to dehydrate, shrink and crack. Some Bible critics claim that mud cracks disprove the global flood, because they are supposedly found throughout the geological record, and therefore imply a series of prolonged periods of drying out, instead of one great watery cataclysm that laid down most sedimentary layers. However, this argument is far from ‘rock solid’, because true mud cracks are easy to confuse with cracks formed by other mechanisms that don’t involve a period of drying out. For instance, it is well known that structures resembling mud cracks can form underwater. Moreover, research suggests that true mud cracks could develop within hours. So flood sediments, briefly exposed with tidal movements as the waters rose, could shrink and crack very quickly. Thus cracks in mud don’t disprove the flood!

Dr. Marcus Ross (Ph.D. in Geosciences and Professor of Geology) explains how the Cambrian Explosion defies evolutionary predictions.